


What Team?

by MoonshoesOfTime



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Ball is love ball is life, Gen, Other, Reader Insert, puns and bad humor for days, reader - Freeform, started out as a crackfic and now we're here, trashier than the grand king, volleyballdorks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-05-23 08:24:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 34,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6110722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonshoesOfTime/pseuds/MoonshoesOfTime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Y/n) is just a regular 2nd year student of Nekoma high school, but when you're involved with the volleyball team, especially as their manager you can never be completely sure how things will end up.<br/>follow (y/n)'s story as the manager of the volleyball transfixed cats, where it's more than certain that both good and bad times will occur!<br/>learn of (y/n)'s past and join their future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Just Purr-fect

[DING!]

You groaned loudly and starting searching for your phone, blindly flailing your arms around until you picked it up and looked at the time.

‘05:40’

“Who the hell is texting me at shit in the morning?” you grumbled, squinting your eyes at the brightness of your phone.

 

[1 new message received]

[To: Sir Douche Lord]  
[From: TsunTsun Trash]

[Message received at 05:38]

‘Potato Tomato’

 

you kept staring at the almost blinding light coming from your phone with a dumbfounded expression that slowly morphed into pure and utter rage. 

With a rather animalistic growl you started typing in your reply- well more like slamming you fingers against the screen, but that’s not the point.

 

[To: TsunTsun Trash]  
[From: Sir Douche Lord]

‘Waking up to this shit is pissing me the fuck off!  
So fuck you homeboy!’

You waited a bit for a reply but when none came you decided that you might as well go take a shower and get ready early since a certain someone decided to give you his AMAZING version of a good morning text.

Swearing up a storm while lazily wrapping your blanket around your shoulders, you heaved yourself into the bathroom before you could change your mind about being productive.

 

-Small time-skip-

An hour later, you had showered, made and consumed breakfast, put on your school uniform, and done every other tedious little thing that made up your mornings, albeit a lot slower than normally since you had more than enough time for once. 

Now that you felt a bit more refreshed, albeit still tired, you threw yourself onto the couch and fished you phone out of your pocket.

-Sigh-

“still nothing” you threw your phone gently to the other end of the couch.

that dork lord still hadn’t answered, and you were at this point pretty convinced that he had sent you that shitty text and simply went back to sleep, since he knew it would piss you off.

“One of these days I’ll go to his damn school and fucking maul him, break his dumb glasses and punch the stupid smirk off of his face” you declared roared clenching your first dramatically.

Stopping that train of thought you realized that maybe you shouldn’t be yelling this early in the morning, as lucky as you were to have your own place, it would be bad to disturb your neighbors, if you still lived with your parents they would surely have yelled at you about ‘it being too early for you and your loud noises’ so hopefully you hadn’t woken anyone up with your promise of pain and suffering.

-sigh-

Turning on the TV, you decided to watch some random show that seemed decent, since you still had at least -you checked your phone for an answer- 15 minutes until you had to head to the train station.

[DING!]

“Huh?” a bit lost in thought you grabbed for your phone, and brought it to your face. 

[1 new message received]

You checked the text and started chuckling as soon as you had read it. 

[Message received at 07:02]

[From: Team Mom (=ↀωↀ=)✧]  
[To: Favorite Cat Child]

‘Good morning (y/n)-san I hope you’re feeling alright, don’t strain yourself too much, we’re all looking forward to seeing you again! See you at morning practice’

 

“Ahhh~ Yaku the ever doting mother as usual I see” you mused, while quickly replying, snickering to yourself once or twice.

[From: Favorite Cat Child]  
[To: Team Mom (=ↀωↀ=)✧]

‘Relax Yaku, I’m feline fine~! (^ =˃ᆺ˂)  
But thank you for worrying about me, mother!  
I’m looking forward to seeing the team again and I’m sure you’ve improved a lot ~! (* •̀ᴗ•́*)و ̑̑  
see you there!

You could already imagine his expression and him groaning when he read the cat pun, but in your defense he basically walked right into that one!

 

Checking the time on your phone again you turned off the TV and decided that you might as well start heading off to the train, patting your pockets you checked that you had everything, wallet? Yep! Keys? Check! Phone? As if you would forget your phone!

Now all you needed was to grab your bag and you would be good to go. 

Finally you would get to see your friends again; it truly felt like it had been forever since you had last talked to them face to face.

Slinging your bag over your shoulder, you headed out of your front door, and turned around to lock the door.

“Boo”

you turned around and were met with a seemingly innocent smile, short dark brown hair, forest green eyes and glasses.  
In less than two seconds you were smacking the shit out of the perpetrator who had decided to sneak up on you.

“I swear if you keep pulling this crap on me, I will end you” you commented in I gruff voice.

You both stared at each other until a smiled twitched at your face and you pulled the familiar person into a hug.

“Fuuuuuck~ I missed you Noa!” you said crushing said boy.

“What a way to great your older brother” He wheezed out, since you were still squeezing the life out of him.

You released your brother from the hug and replied off handedly.  
“Well, that’s what you get for sending that shitty morning text, you butt-trumpet!”

“You know I’m not exactly ‘nice’ to shitheads who disturb my sleep” you added.

He clicked his tongue and ruffled your hair.

“I know, I know~” he sighed, now that he was finally able to breathe properly

“You’re a mean gremlin in the morning” he said with a shit-eating grin

this only earned him a punch to the shoulder and a sassy reply of

“I’m still taller than you though~!”

“ONLY BY 2 INCHES!” he roared

you simply rolled your eyes, grabbed his arm and started dragging him with you to the station, feeling quite pleased with your little jab at his height 

“not that I’m displeased with you coming ALL this way to visit me, brother dearest” you said teasingly.

“But shouldn’t you be on your way to school or something?” you questioned, quite surprised that your lazy ass brother had taken the time to not only visit you, but seemingly also take you to school.

“Well, no matter how mean they are, I can’t very well let my cripple of a sibling return to school without me seeing them off, now can I?” he questioned you in return.

“I’m not a fucking cripple Noa!” you retaliated.

He ignored your comment and continued his little rant.

“Besides, who wouldn’t want their loving older brother taking them to school?” he said with a sugary smile.

you couldn’t help but scoff at that, your brother took great pride in reminding you that you were the younger sibling, and that he was, in his own words, ‘the perfect brother, envied by millions’

“You’re such a drama queen bro~!”

You continued on your way towards the train station, not really saying much, just enjoying the early morning sun and your brothers company. 

That was until you realized something.

“Hey bro~?” you inquired with a small smirk tugging at your lips.

Your brother hummed a bit too happily in response and waited for you to continue. 

“The reason you decided to take me to school wouldn’t be because you wanted to miss out on your duties as manager, now would it~?”

Noa chocked on air, and turned towards you with a twitchy smile.

“W-what? I would never do something l-like that!” he squeaked 

“Hmmm~? Really now?” you mused, not really believing him in the slightest.

Your brother nodded frantically, and averted his eyes from your own with an awkward laugh.

“Sooo~ with that said, you wouldn’t mind if I called up mamabird?” you said with a devious smile.  
Noa stiffened, and you turned to look at his amusingly tense form, casually stretching your arms behind your back to add to your obviously fake nonchalant attitude.

“it’s been suuuuuuch a long time since I talked to those dorks, and now that you’re here I could inform them on how long it’s going to take before you return~?”

It took less than a second for Noa to attach himself to you, shaking your shoulders while various pleas escaped his mouth.

“DON’T CALL SUGAMAMA! HE’LL KILL ME! I TOLD THE TEAM I HAD TO GO TO AN APOINTMENT PLEASE DON’T RAT ME OUT! I JUST WANTED TO SPEND SOME TIME WITH ME PRECIOUS YOUNGER SIBLING! WE DON’T SEE EACH OTHER ENOUGH! I’LL EVEN BUY YOU SOME SWEETS! DO YOU WANT SWEETS? CAKE? PASTRIES? ANYTHING?!?” He ranted.

Normally you would have let him continue, but you had places to be, people to see, literally.

You grabbed his shoulder and stopped him from possibly giving you a concussion.

“Bro chill, I was just joking! Although you really ought to have told the team the truth, I’m sure they would’ve let you take the day off if you had just asked…dumbass” 

giving Noa a gentle smile he seemed to calm down enough for you continue.

“How about this…” you mused, while placing a finger against your lips.

“I’ll take the blame and tell the team that it was my idea and that I practically forced you to go to Tokyo and take me to school...”

Noa seemed to smile at this, and inhaled deeply, already ready to thank you and praise you for helping him out.

But before he could even get a word out you added.

“But…”

He stiffened and prepared himself for his own demise, you had never let him go that easily before, so why the hell did he think that this time would be different.

“In exchange for my kind favor, you have to go to the arcade with me next month, and you’re not allowed to whine or cry when I crush you with my skills” you finished with a blank face.

To some people this wouldn’t exactly be punishment, but to be honest, you and your brother got pretty competitive when facing each other in any sort of competition.

Swearing, yelling, insults, crying, whining, throwing objects, all normal parts of any competition between the two of you.

And to your luck it just so happens that your brother sucked at any kind of video games.

Noa pondered his options, getting killed by sugamama, or facing the humiliation of getting publicly crushed in game after game by you, and most likely never hearing the end of it.

“Well, what will it be?” you inquired.

“…”

“What? Cat got your tongue?” you snickered.

“…”

still no answer…

“Looks like I’ll have to talk to-“you cut yourself off as soon as you looked at your brothers’ face.

You groaned loudly, there he was, your OLDER brother, crying dramatically in the middle of the street, tears running down his cheeks while he sniveled like a little kid that was just told he couldn’t have his favorite candy.

“Why does he always have to do this” you mumbled more to yourself, than anyone else.

You grabbed his face and dried his tears to your best ability, while cursing your brother and his dramatic ways.

When his tears were reduced to sniffles you grabbed his hand and started dragging him with you once again.

“Just forget about it you big crybaby, I’ll take the blame regardless, but you fucking owe me!”

Noa perked up in an instant and started swinging your intertwined hands while humming a happy tune.  
“And you say you have no idea why people think you’re the younger sibling” you scoffed playfully.

Nothing was said after that, everything had calmed down.

At least until your phone suddenly vibrated.

[1 new message received]

[To: (y/n)-san]  
[From: Pudding Prince (´,,•ω•,,)♡]

‘(y/n)-san, didn’t you say you were coming back today?  
We waited for your train to come in, but you weren’t on it’

you stopped in you tracks, as Noa almost fell on his ass when he felt the sudden tug on his arm.

Slowly you looked at the time on your phone.

 

[08:07]

 

Your train had already left the station quite a while ago.

 

“…”

“Hey, what’s wrong?” your brother nudged you.

“You…“you started out slowly

“Hmmm….what about me?” Noa smiled childishly.

You felt the rage burning within you and glared coldly at your brother in hope that he would drop dead on the spot.

“YOU ABSOLUTE BASTARD, YOU MADE ME MISS MY TRAIN YOU FUCKING BAGEL!” you roared at him and started chasing your now frightened brother through the streets.

Screams, swears and insults echoed through the streets, most bystanders keeping their distance while some seemed to find you and your brothers antics humorous.

In the end you threw your, now bruised up, brother on a train back home before you could murder him, and sat down to wait for the next train headed towards your school.

“Well isn’t this a fucking amazing way start my day?!?!” you grumbled.


	2. Fur-ious Cat Mom?

An hour later, you were walking around the school, simply taking your time getting to class, you were already late so what harm could a few minutes extra cause?

You had received a couple of apologetic texts from Noa while on the train, but you decided to ignore them for the meantime, it wasn’t like anything he said could change the fact that he had made your late on your first day back. 

You may love your brother to pieces most of the time, but he sure had mastered the art of being a pain in your ass.

Rubbing your back that was starting to ache, you decided that maybe, just maybe you would skip out on the first class, it wasn’t like you couldn’t catch up on the lesson later on after all.

“At least it could be worse” you sighed to yourself.

Since it was sunny outside you figured you might as well find somewhere you could sit and enjoy the weather, it’s not like you had anything better to do since you had already made up your mind about skipping class.

You leisurely walked towards one of your favorite places on the school grounds, besides the gym that is, a medium tree that in your opinion had the perfect shape to be climbed and hide anyone within its green leaves. 

You threw your coat off and placed it and your bag near the roots of the tree, before skillfully hiding yourself on a wide branch.

You grabbed your phone from your pocket, albeit a bit clumsily, and decided that you might as well let Kenma know that you had finally arrived, it’s not like he would actually care that you’re skipping class, maybe he would be suffering alone in a stuffy classroom, but he would just have to suck it up and deal with it.

You silently reminded yourself not to let Yaku know about skipping class.

You shivered a bit at the thought.

For such a short guy he could be pretty intimidating if you piss him off, hurt his team, or disagree with his motherly opinions. 

Anyways, back to that text you were going to send.

‘Oi Kenma, I just wanted to let you know that I’m finally here, I missed my usual train and now I’m skipping out on the first class, sorry for leaving you hanging, see you after class!’

You read the text through twice before nodding approvingly to yourself and pressing send, Short and to the point. Just like Yaku 

[DING!]

Well that was surprisingly fast, wait no, it actually wasn’t that surprising. 

Kenma without either his phone or his PSP was like…like…Kuroo without his bedhead? Yeah that sounded about right.

[1 new message received]

You twitched and almost dropped your phone as soon as you read who it was from.

[Message received at 09:22]

[From: Team Mom ( =ↀωↀ= )✧]  
[To: Favorite Cat Child]

‘YOU’RE WHAT?!?’

You gaped at the text and felt your mind go blank.

“…”  
“I—I’m-” choking a bit, before getting the words out.

“I-I’m so fucking dead” you muttered, already feeling your soul drift off with the gentle spring breeze.

Of all the moments you could fuck up, it just had to be right here, right now, and involving the otherwise gentle team mom.

[DING!]

[1 new message received]

“Shiiiiiiiiiiiiit” you hissed.

[Message received at 09:23]

[From: Team Mom ( =ↀωↀ= )✧]  
[To: Favorite Cat Child]

‘YOU BETTER EXPLAIN YOURSELF RIGHT NOW!?!’

“How the hell am I supposed to do that, huh?” you grimaced.

Placing a hand over your heart you acted out an answer.

“Oh you see Yaku, I just felt like skipping class since I was already late and I hoped you would never find out so that I would actually get to live through the day!” you scoffed as soon as you had finished your sentence.

“Yeah right! The day he won’t reprimand me for admitting something like that is the day Yamamoto becomes a lady-killer!” 

“Isn’t that a bit harsh?” a sly voice you knew a bit too well drawled.

You turned your face to glare down at the volleyball teams’ captain, before speaking.

“First of all, you know I love that little dork, he just needs to relax a bit, be a bit less intimidating when approaching girls, you know?”

Kuroo only nodded letting you continue.

“Second of all, I could have chosen to insult that permanent bedhead of yours instead, would you prefer that?” 

his stupid smirk just widened in response, which only proved to fuel your anger.

“Third and last of all, I’ve had an exhausting morning and now I am going to be slaughtered by YOUR libero so I’m pretty sure I can be as mean as I want to!”

[DING!]

As if to prove your point you received another text seconds later.

[Message received at 09:26]

[From: Team Mom ( =ↀωↀ= )✧]  
[To: Favorite Cat Child]

‘I KNOW YOU’RE READING MY TEXTS!?!’

 

You slumped against the tree trunk with a sigh and a defeated expression.

“Kuroo…” you said in a whisper.

He grinned up at you and gave a small hum to let you know that he had heard you.

“When Yaku kills me, I want you to have my secret stash of candy…” you said solemnly with a blank stare

“And Kenma can have all of my games if he wants to…” you added. 

 

“…”

that was apparently all it took to make the male erupt in a fit of snorts and chuckles.  
As soon as he had calmed down a bit, with help from your disapproving glare he spoke up.

“Well, it sounds like you’ve had a pretty Cat-astrophic day (Y/n)” 

when you realized what he had just said you face palmed, a bit harder than necessary, and started groaning loudly.

“You know I fucking love your puns Kuroo, but I’m serious! YAKU IS GOING TO MURDER ME!” you exclaimed.

“Don’t you remember what happened last time I made him mad?” 

“It wasn’t THAT bad (Y/n)” Kuroo retaliated off handedly.

[DING!]

Shit, another text from Yaku, you really needed to do something about the situation at hand instead of having ‘pleasant’ conversations with captain bedhead down there.

“But Kuroo, You know how much I hate it when cat mom yells at me” you frowned

“So please stop smirking and help me out here you big oaf; you’re the captain after all” 

He just looked at you expectantly for a few seconds until you realized what he was getting at.

 

You cleared your throat.

“OH GREAT CAT CAPTAIN, CAPTAIN OF THE CATS, will you purr-lease help Meow-t?” you proclaimed with a roll of your eyes and a small smile twitching at the corner of your mouth.

This dork lord sure knew how to cheer you up in even the worst situations.

“Of course I’ll help you out (y/n) all you had to do was ask fur it! Now how about I get this kitty down from its tree?” he mused, while opening up his arms and placing himself right underneath the branch you were sitting on.

“You better not drop me Kuroo” you warned him.

And with that said you slid into his arms, it’s not like the branch was that far above the ground, but you still had to be careful for another couple of weeks, at least that’s what your doctor had advised you to.

With your arms still around him he placed you gently on the ground before ruffling your hair.

“Things weren’t the same without our manager running around, yelling at us every few seconds you know?” he said in a teasing tone.

You squeezed him closer to you in a hug and responded in an equally teasing tone

“I missed you guys too; life is waaay too boring without all of my kitty cats by my side!” 

[DING!]

Of course your little reunion with the captain had to be disturbed by your phone.

[Message received at 09:29]

[From: Team Mom ( =ↀωↀ= )✧]  
[To: Favorite Cat Child]

‘YOU BETTER NOT HAVE GOTTEN YOURSELF HURT AGAIN, OR SO HELP ME!’

You ran a hand through your slightly tussled hair.  
Even though he was still typing in all caps he seemed to be calming down a bit, or so you tried to convince yourself.

Not a second later the bell rang, and immediately after your phone started ringing signaling that you were getting a call.

[Team Mom ( =ↀωↀ= )✧]

 

whining a bit, you decided that it would probably be for the best to just answer

releasing Kuroo fully from the hug you answered the phone and held it to your ear nonchalantly

“Heeeeeey~ Yaku? How are you? Nice weather we’re having right?” you tried sounding as if the thought of him murdering you hadn’t been on your mind for the last couple of minutes. Failing miserably

“…” silence greeted you.

Followed by a frustrated sigh.

“(y/n), where are you right now? I’m coming to find you!” you gulped, looking at Kuroo for help.

Kuroo signaled you to hand over your phone, which you were more than willing to do at the moment.  
You practically threw the phone at him

“Yo Yaku!” Kuroo greeted.

You couldn’t quite hear what Yaku was saying, but so far it sounded like you didn’t have to plan your own funeral.

“Yeah…No…I know…Yeah…Alright see you in a few” and with that Kuroo hung up.

You looked at him expecting an explanation or something, and as soon as he started chuckling you assumed that things were going to be alright for now.

Kuroo ruffled your hair even further, which earned him a little grumble from you, before slinging his arm around your shoulders and dragging you to what would probably be a worried cat mom.

Maybe today was turning out to not be so bad after all?

-Small time skip-

A short walk later, you and your captain was standing in front of a classroom you knew belonged to your favorite team mom. Still feeling a bit apprehensive about entering Kuroo decided to make it ‘easier’ for you by gently shoving you inside, waving at you, and walking away in less than 3 seconds flat.

You looked over your shoulder to see Kuroo sauntering off in the distance before focusing on your surroundings.

As soon as you locked eyes with the short libero, you immediately forgot every thought that had found it possible that he wouldn’t beat you up for something as dumb as skipping class.

“…”

He looked absolutely livid.

“(Y/n)!” his voice rang through the classroom and the students still standing around backed up a bit, feeling the dark aura that their classmate was emitting at the moment growing thicker by the second.

You stiffened, and broke out in a cold sweat.

Powerwalking towards you, he grabbed your shoulders with a firm yet gentle grip as soon as he was close enough.

starring up into your eyes he sighed deeply before slowly letting go of the waves of fury that had rolled off of him just a couple of seconds ago, and pulled you into a hug.

Returning the hug, you heard him mumble something.

You pulled away from the hug a bit until you could see his face.  
“What was that Yaku?” You teased with a smile.

Yaku sent you a sharp glare.

You probably shouldn’t push your luck any further, so dropping the teasing you waited for him to say something.

His glare softened after some time, and his lips stretched into a doting smile.

“I said, I was worried that you had gone and hurt yourself again when you didn’t show up for morning practice”

“You worry too much Yaku” 

He scoffed and pulled you into another hug.

“Well someone has to worry about you, since you’re not going to do it yourself”

Keeping in your chuckles you decided not to comment aloud on how motherly he was acting right now.

You both just stood there and enjoyed the now calm atmosphere.

 

“By the way…” The male began in an earie manner.

“…”

“If I were you I would be getting to class, you wouldn’t want to skip another class, now would you?” he patted your shoulder a bit harder than necessary, wearing a creepy smile, before turning around and walking towards his seat.

You froze for a second before hearing the bell signal the start of the next period.

You twirled around, speeding of towards your classroom, while swears left your lips with every exhale.

Even though you didn’t get killed by cat mom, you couldn’t be sure the teacher would let you off the hook just as easily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "We're like the blood in our veins. We must flow without stopping. Keep the oxygen moving and your mind working."


	3. Paw-some Ride

You had made it to class at the last second and immediately slid into your seat where you leaned back and tried to calm your breath.

“Holy shit, I am sooo out of shape” you huffed, feeling drained from the run you had just had.

You tipped your chair and leaned further back, successfully resting your head against the desk behind you!

“Yo, Kenma” you said with a small smile towards the setter.

He looked up from his PSP and focused on you for a second or two, before looking down again and giving a slight hum to let you now he was listening.

“So how did you survive all these boring classes while your favorite person in the entire world was gone?” you drawled.

“Who are you talking about (y/n)-san?” he said without looking away from the game he was quite invested in.

You gave a mock hurt expression and retaliated in a dramatic voice

“Me of course!” 

“How you wound me Kenma and here I thought you were glad to have your amazing friend and manager back!” You placed your arm over your eyes and stayed like that for a while.

“…”

Removing your arm just enough to see his face; you noticed a small but subtle smile gracing his lips.

“I missed you guys a lot” you murmured, placing your arm to cover your eyes once more.

Another long pause ensued.

“We missed you too” he said in a mumbled voice.  
You chuckled a bit at the young pudding heads adorable demeanor and stretched out your arm so that you could pat his soft hair.

“I know you did, the old man himself called me almost daily while I was recovering” you said with a soft smile

You had really missed being in school, no matter how weird that sounded it was the truth.  
The volleyball team was like a second family to you, and you honestly wouldn’t have it any other way.

You retracted your hand from the setters’ hair, and turned around on your chair so that you could face him without having to bend your neck.

“By the way Kenma…”

he took a quick glance at you.

“I heard you were put on lev duty for a while” you searched his face for an answer, and in no time at all you were rewarded with a small frown.

“Oi, what’s up with that face? He’s not THAT bad! He just needs to learn how to control his limbs” Haiba Lev, Nekomas’ self-proclaimed ace, how you had missed that dork.

Kenma sighed and actually decided to pause his game for once.

“He’s annoying, that’s what he is” he said with such a displeased face that you couldn’t stop yourself from laughing aloud. Almost choking to death on your own laughter

before you could choke out a reply, you heard the door to the classroom slam shut with incredible force, stopping your laughter in an instant.

The rest of your classmates had filed into their sets while you had been talking to Kenma, and were now silently staring at you, some with pity but most were trying to hide their snickers.

The setter just stared at you and discretely motioned for you to turn around.

And as you did you were met with the disapproving glare of your maths teacher, shit this was pretty bad, that man didn’t have an ounce of sympathy for any kinds of disturbances, and sadly you were no exception.

“(Y/l/n), causing havoc in my classroom on the first day back I see?” He spoke up in a monotone, while keeping a sharp glare locked on you.

“…” keeping your big mouth shut was probably the best plan of action right now, the thought of having detention on your first day or any other day for that matter wasn’t really that tempting.

“If you’re done I would like to start class” he didn’t wait for your answer, but instead turned around and started the lesson.

You exhaled quietly in relief and decided that today was surely not your day. 

-Small time skip-

you had lived through the next couple of lessons without screwing up too badly, only dropping your pen a couple of times, getting caught staring out of the window instead of paying attention once or twice, and getting mildly scolded for munching on snacks during your English lesson.

Don’t get me wrong, you’re normally a pretty decent student, but there was just something about today, and we’re not talking about your bad luck.

You had looked forward to seeing the team again, and though you had already reunited with a few of the members, you really couldn’t wait until after school practice were they would hopefully all be showing you what you’ve been missing out on.

Talking about missing out, you should probably find coach and get filled in on their progress and training schedule, with that thought you started your search after the old geezer or Naoi, basically wasting your lunch period.

Yaku would all in all not be a very happy mother, but you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, and if it’s for the team you would practically do everything, even miss out on food.

Waving goodbye to Kenma you headed out.

\- Small time skip -

“This is fucking bullshit I tell you” you grumbled to yourself, while continuing down the hallway.

You had been searching for the two of them for almost 15 minutes now, and you had neither seen them nor did it seem like anybody else knew where they currently were.

“You know what? Screw this! I can just ask them for it at practice” 

turning around you bumped into someone, resulting in you landing flat on your ass, while the other person remained standing.

As soon as your body had hit the floor a jolt of pain had surged through your spine, and was now basically paralyzing you for the time being, while making you feel a bit dizzy.

You tried to look up at your perpetrator, and you actually had to look pretty far up. You kept tilting your head until you reached piercing green eyes and a silver mop of neatly parted hair.

“Holy shit…” you muttered.

The male simply tilted his head to the side childishly and stared at you.

It might’ve been the pain making your brain stop working properly, and later on you would realize just how fucking dumb you must’ve sounded, but none of that mattered at the moment, your mind screamed a single word at you and the next moment, well what do you know? You blurted it out like the tactless person you are.

“Titan” 

seconds passed before lev’s face lit up in a childish grin, and with his freakishly long limbs he scooped you up from the floor and held you in a hug, leaving your feet a good couple of inches above the ground might I add.

“(y/n)-Senpai! You’re back!” he chirped; completely ignore what you had just said.

Still a bit unfocused because of the pain you just kept staring at him and tried to comprehend what was going on, wincing a bit at the tight grip he was keeping on you.

“You should be more careful senpai, coach said you hurt yourself and that was why you couldn’t come to practice and toss to me~!” He chided.

“But now that you’re back you can help me with my spikes~!”

Coming to your senses you finally hugged the giant cat baby back. Damn today had consisted of a lot of hugging so far, and you could only imagine that you would be getting more of them in the near future.

He continued babbling on and on about how Kenma had practiced with him, how Yaku was still coaching him reprimanding him with violence and how awesome his spike had become while you had been away. It was kind of adorable how hyped up he would get when it came to volleyball. 

Sadly you had to interrupt his rant.

“Hey Lev?” you questioned slowly.

“Yes senpai?” Damn, you swore you could almost see sparkles surrounding him because of his happy demeanor.

“As much as I like being suspended in the air, I think I smacked pretty hard against the floor so I would like to be able to maybe sit down for a few! If that’s cool with you kitty cat?” not even pain would keep you from occasionally teasing the tall middle blocker.

He spaced out for a bit before lifting you completely into his arms and carefully walked down the hallway.

“Lev you do realize I just asked you to put me down, right?” you said with a deadpan.

“But that’s not what you said senpai, you wanted to sit and now you’re sitting in my arms!” well, technically he wasn’t wrong. 

Besides, it wasn’t like it was uncomfortable being carried around if you had to be honest.

“If you weren’t such an adorable kohai, I would be smacking the shit out of you right now Lev!” you said, a smile quirking at your lips. 

He hummed in acknowledgement of your empty threat, you might make yourself sound like quite the brute at times, but your brother was the only one who, in your opinion, deserved being knocked around once in a while.

 

[DING!]

Speak of the devil.

[To: Sir Douche Lord]  
[From: TsunTsun Trash]

[Message received at 12:51]

‘Hey, are you still mad at me?’

[DING!]  
[DING!]  
[DING!]  
[DING!]

A few seconds later you had received a total of five consecutive texts from Noa.

‘I said I was sorry, you know? Can’t you just forgive me already?’

‘Noya and Tanaka says hi’

‘scratch that, the whole team says hi’

‘or, those of the team members that you’ve met so far at least’

Lev was still carrying you around, seeming quite content with it, so you decided that you might as well just answer your brother before he starts spamming your phone any further.

 

[To: TsunTsun Trash]  
[From: Sir Douche Lord]

‘Don’t worry too much about it bro! I may or may not have overreacted this morning and I would’ve told you so earlier but I kind of forgot! Also, tell the boys that I say hi as well ╰ (・∇・╰)’

 

[DING!]

Another text, golly gosh you wondered who that could be from.

[To: Sir Douche Lord]  
[From: TsunTsun Trash]

‘you just wanted me to feel bad didn’t you?! (ಠ ∩ಠ)’

scoffing at his surprisingly accurate guess, you wrote a quick reply of:  
‘why I would never, brother dearest’  
before putting away your phone and looking up at Lev who was by now humming a happy little tune.

“Hey Lev, where are you taking me?” you asked, staring up at the giant

“you’ll see in just a minute senpai~!” came his reply.

Soon enough the two of you stopped outside of a familiar classroom, yours to be more exact.  
It would seem that your dear kohai had decided to take you to class before you would be late for it.

You tapped his shoulder a couple of times as a sign that you wanted to be let down now.

“Thanks for the lift Lev, but next time maybe I could just walk next to you, you know?” you said shaking your head.

“But it’s more entertaining to carry you around (y/n)-senpai!” the middle blocker grinned.

You couldn’t really argue with that, it had been quite an experience walking through the hallways from that high up, you had received a few befuddled looks here and there, but you didn’t really care.

Sighing, you turned your back to Lev and waved to him over your shoulder.

“I’ll see you later at practice Lev, maybe I’ll even toss to you a couple of times” you knew that that was all you needed to say to him for him to be absolutely over the moon, and how could you deny this big man-child of his happiness? Besides he really had a bright future in volleyball ahead of him, he just needed some practice…

A lot of practice

walking to your seat you sat down, straightened up a bit and slammed the palms of your hands against your cheeks. All you needed to do now was survive another 3 lessons and you would be free to go to your first practice in what felt like forever.

 

“Piece of cake” you muttered to yourself, even though you secretly doubted that you would be able to concentrate for even a second.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "We're like the blood in our veins. We must flow without stopping. Keep the oxygen moving and your mind working."


	4. Where I Belong

As soon as the last bell had rung you stood up from your seat, turned around to Kenma who gave you a questioning glance in return, and then proceeded to slump your entire body onto his desk.

“Kenma” you whined

“…” nothing

“Keeeeeeeenmaaaaaa” you repeated a bit louder.

“What is it (y/n)-san?” the setter mumbled, seeming pretty disinterested with your dramatic antics and whatever you had to say.

“Can you carry me to practice? I think the last lesson drained me of all of my energy!” 

“no” he said simply

“rude” you said with a straight face

“…”

silence…

“Oi, you two, it’s time for practice” You heard a call from the doorway.

Turning your face to look at Kuroo you decided to try your luck again

“Kuroo, since you basically left me to be possibly mauled by Yaku earlier, I think you should carry me to practice” 

“How about you use those two perfectly working legs to haul your ass to practice yourself?” He questioned with a grin

“But I’m super tiiiiiiiired, and I need all the energy I have left to help you guys out” you defended

“The answer is still no Kitten” 

“not even if I give you the rest of my snacks?” hoping that you would soon have him carrying you to practice, you simply waited for him to give in, if you played your cards right you knew he would sooner or later. It was just a matter of time, and technique.

“Trying to bribe me again I see” he chuckled

“Uhmmm….yeah?” there was really no point in lying to him after all.

“It’s tempting but no” he drawled with a sly expression

you were tempted to just deal with it and go to practice by yourself until you came up with a brilliant plan. In your own opinion that is  
“I’ll make you lunch for 2 days” you offered

“Make it 4 and we have a deal” the captain countered

you were about to refuse but then decided that you would actually rather make this dork lords’ lunch than walk to practice at the moment, you could regret your decisions later, for now you would just enjoy the pros of the agreement.

“You drive a hard bargain captain but I agree to your terms” you replied.

Kenma had already packed his stuff and was ready to head to practice, really not caring about you and Kuroos’ conversation, yet he still waited for the two of you to get your acts together.

“You wouldn’t want me any other way” he simply said before walking over and pulling you to your feet.

As soon as you were standing steadily, he turned around and crouched down so that you could jump onto his back, which you of course did.

“As weird as this is going to sound I think I could get used to people lugging me around” you said with a yawn.

“I almost forgot how lazy you could be” Kuroo mused, with earned him a small slap to the shoulder.

“I’m not lazy, I’m simply preserving my energy for stuff that I actually find important” 

“such as?”

“Volleyball, what else you big dork?” you snickered

 

\- small time skip -

you jumped off of Kuroos back before he could enter the gym and signaled for the two boys to enter without you.

Leaving you behind with a shrug of their shoulders, you took a deep breath and exhaled softly.

Okay, this was your time to shine, your ticket to Broadway finally you were going to get back into the role as the manager of the team, and what better way to greet your fellow teammates than with a dazzling entrance?

 

Waiting for a few seconds, you cleared your throat and prepared yourself, already feeling your brain buzz with more energy and excitement than you had had all day.

Sliding the door to the side with all your might you entered the gym with a grin brighter than the sun itself.

“CHILDREN I’M HOME~!” You called.

“…”

Silence…

wow, what a fucking amazing reaction to your return, they could at least pretend to be excited for your return or somethi-

“Ooofff” Aaand there goes the air you were trying to breathe.  
You guessed that you technically deserved that one though.

Your face was getting smooshed into someone’s chest while the air had long since been squeezed out of your lungs, and you already had a general idea of who the perpetrator was

 

“I take it that you actually missed my company eh?…Inuoka?” You wheezed out, looking up at the first year.

“Of course (y/n)-san!” He smiled down at you.  
Damn that smile of his was definitely still brighter than your future. Kidding kidding

“Oi Inuoka, we just got our manager back, so maybe you should refrain from killing them, yeah?” you heard Kuroo call to the energetic middle blocker.

He nodded frantically and released you from his grip after a couple of seconds, walking with you towards the coaches.

“It’s good to have you back (y/l/n)” Nekomata chuckled.

“Ah~ It’s good to be back old man” you replied with a satisfied grin.

“Still have the manners of a little brat I see?” 

“You know it coach!” you cheered, taking a mock bow towards the old geezer.  
This earned you another chuckle and a gentle ruffling of your hair.  
Suddenly you were gripped in a headlock from behind and mercilessly dragged into someone’s chest, while having your hair almost ripped out from the aggressive noogie you were receiving.

“Aw shit, stop it damn it! It fucking hurts!” you whined.

“WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT SWEARING?” you heard the commanding voice of Yaku from somewhere in the gym.

“Well if this bara shit stick would just release me, I could try to watch my potty mouth in front of the kids!” you yelled back.

“You should really learn to respect your elders (y/l/n)” chastised the deep voice of the bastard that was still man-handling you, aka Naoi, the other coach of the team.  
“Couldn’t you just say you missed me like all the other guys instead of trying to send me back to the hospital you old fart?!” you asked with a smug grin, even in the uncomfortable position you were in, you couldn’t help but be a little shit towards him.

“I’M NOT THAT OLD!” he roared, you really knew just what to say to get him all riled up.

He released you from his hold and bonked you on the head gently.

“Ouch, I missed you too you egg!” you said rubbing your neck a bit from the tight grip he had had on you.

Looking around for the people you hadn’t greeted yet you spotted Nekomas Vice-captain and headed in a straight line towards him.

“Yo Senpai, aren’t you going to say how much you missed me or something?” you asked Kai

you heard a sly “How come you don’t call me senpai, kitten?” from Kuroo, but decided to just wave him off and ignore his stupidity for a while.

“We missed you (Y/l/n)” Came the reply from the gentle upperclassman while his hand rested on your shoulder

you turned to Kuroo and exclaimed with a ridiculously wide smirk

“See? This is why I don’t call you senpai, Kuroo! Senpais are cool and gentle, just like our dearest vice-captain here!” to enhance your point you swung your arm, to the best of your abilities at least around Kai’s shoulder.

Kai just shook his head, and proceeded to remove your arm, so that he could get ready for practice.

“What about Yaku then? He’s your senpai too!” drawled the amused Bedhead.

“No Yaku is cat mom” you said with a blank face.  
This sent several team members into fits of snorts and chuckles.

Seconds later you heard a yelp of pain, and found Lev lying on the floor with his butt in the air, you quickly put two and two together when you saw an equally embarrassed and aggravated Yaku standing a few feet away from him.

“Hey! Hey! Hey! There’s no need to be so embarrassed by your motherly tendencies, Yaku!” you exclaimed, crossing your arms and shaking your head in a scolding manner.

He sent you a cold glare that had you shut up in an instant.

Okay, okay, note to self, try not to annoy Yaku any further today, got it? Good!  
Quickly turning your head to find some kind of distraction you spotted a blonde Mohawk in no time flat.

“Yo, Yamamoto!” you casually raised your hand for a fist bump which was returned with excitement

“Finally you’re back, it took you long enough” 

“Tch, it’s not like I asked to be away from you guys for so long, you know?” you replied and gave the intimidating wing spiker a hug.

“Yeah, yeah, I know” 

“I need to say hi to the rest of the guys, before practice starts, so we can discuss the fact that you should really allow me to be your wingman, at some other point” you offhandedly commented with a smug expression, before leaving him to his own business while you tried to seek out the rest of the team

“OI, I DON’T NEED YOUR HELP!” he bellowed at you.

“Sure, sure, whatever you say you big nerd!” you snickered to yourself, gee these guys sure are fun to annoy, eh?

You walked over Lev’s body that was still lying on the ground twitching every now and then. Wow Yaku must’ve really kicked him hard this time you thought to yourself, not stopping to pick the titan child up, he would eventually do that by himself after all, no need to strain yourself on your first day back.

You were heading for the ever so silent Fukunaga, he wasn’t much of a talker, but he sure knew some amazing jokes once you got to know him, not that you would admit it but this guy might just be funnier than you. Not that big of an achievement to be honest  
“I missed you Fuku, you’re the only one out of these dorks who can compete with my comical genius!” 

He simply sweat dropped and nodded in response, there was really no use in telling you how bad your humor was in his opinion, though you could come up with the occasional jokes that were so bad that they were actually pretty good.

You were more of a sassy-accidentally-funny person truth be told.

Turning around almost done with greeting the team you faced the poor first year that you had left for last, he was just too adorable for his own good, and you always have had a habit of saving the best for last.

Standing with a height of 5’3 you simply couldn’t help yourself from gushing about the adorableness of the short first year.

 

“SHIIIIIIIBAAA~!” you flung yourself at the unsuspected boy and rubbed your cheeks against his own.

“I missed the sweetest little cat baby of them all~!” you hummed

“U-uhmm, (y/n)-senpai? Could you stop doing that? It’s kind of embarrassing!” Shibayama said in a small voice

“anything for the cutest kohai of them all~!” you said beaming down at him with your eyes closed.

 

You opened your eyes and HOLY SHIT, his face was really burning up at this point; you guess he still isn’t accustomed to your teasing ways yet!

“Calm down Shiba, we wouldn’t want you the pop a blood vessel or something, now would we?” you mused, poking his beyond red cheeks.

 

“(Y/L/N)” you heard Nekomata yell at you  
well your fun had to end at some point and you guessed it was about time to get serious.

“COMING!” you called back, and left your blushing kohai with a small wave.

 

“You should really give the boy a break” Naoi commented when you had reached the coaches.

“Pffft, you’re just jealous because you’re neither cute nor adorable~” you said cheekily.

Before he could retort, Nekomata signaled the both of you to calm down and listen to what he had to say.

“It’s good to have you back (y/l/n) and as much as Naoi deserves your teasing here and there, we need to start off practice so I’ll need you to be serious” he said calmly

a lightbulb went off in your brain.

“sooo…” you extended the word for a while

“you need me to do the usual?” you asked with a wicked grin

“exactly” the old geezer chuckled

you nodded at him and inhaled as much oxygen as you could before releasing it in a roar of a yell

“OI, YOU LOVEABLE LITTLE SHITS, COACH SAYS IT’S TIME FOR PRACTICE SO LINE YOUR ASSES UP AND LISTEN TO THE OLD MAN!”

ah~ you simply loved starting off practice like that

you were going to continue your inner monolog until you felt a sharp pain in your head, that made you crouch down in pain.  
“Ouch, what the he-”  
and another one

you looked up at the face of the team mom, and with just a look at his glare you came to the realization that he wanted you to stop swearing in front of the kohai’s

“oh shi-“  
yet another hit  
“FUUUUUUUUUUUUUU---dge, that hurts like a mother trucker Yaku” you grumbled

“Watch your language (y/n)” the libero said with an obviously fake cheery smile. 

You heard Kuroo snickering and sent him an unamused glare, which only made him smirk even wider.

“Ahem” Nekomata cleared his throat and made every team member huddle together so that he could say whatever it was he wanted to say you can’t read minds you know?  
“Just because we have our manager back doesn’t mean you can slack off, you’ve come far these last couple of weeks but I know you have more potential and can get stronger than this…” Nekomata continued his motivational speech which you slowly tuned out, since it was basically the same old thing he always said.  
With a grin you looked around at the faces of your precious teammates.

You were finally back where you wanted to be.  
Together with your loud, crazy, yet loving family of cats.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "We're like the blood in our veins. We must flow without stopping. Keep the oxygen moving and your mind working."


	5. Getting Back on The Court

”Lev you’ve got to focus!” you reminded him for the umpteen time that afternoon.

“I’ll get it this time I swear senpai!” He beamed at you, obviously not feeling the slightest bit discouraged from all the times he had missed while trying to spike your tosses.

You sighed slightly, getting ready to send him another.

“This is the last one, and then I really have to sit down for a few” you chuckled tiredly, rubbing your lower back since it had started acting up a few minutes ago.

You spotted Yaku on the sideline glaring disapprovingly at you, and you had a pretty good idea why he was giving you that look.

You turned your head away and called out to him.

“I’m fine Yaku, it’s just been a while, that’s all” You waved him off with the hand that wasn’t holding a volleyball

Yaku simply sighed, softened his glare and returned to drinking from his water bottle.

“LEV” you exclaimed loudly, making the tall boy jump a bit.

“Yes senpai!”

“Get ready for the most amazing toss in the history of tosses” you said confidently, getting both him and yourself pumped up for what was hopefully about to happen.

Taking a calm breath, you took his previous mishaps into consideration and calculated where the perfect point of impact would be for the middle blocker.

Sincerely hoping that he would actually be able to spike this one.

You locked your gaze on Lev and seconds later the ball was flying through the air, floating along the curve you had mentally added to secure the accuracy of your toss.

Lev swung his arm towards to ball and-

“WHAM!” 

time seemed to stop while you looked from Lev to the ball and back again repeatedly.

“Finally” you panted slightly, while your shoulders slumped down in relief.

“SENPAI! DID YOU SEE THAT? DID YOU? DID YOU?!?” He yelled, jumping with glee towards you.

“Of course I did, that was amazing Lev” you replied giving him a half hug and bumping your hip with his, sending him slightly off balance.

“Now all you need to do is be able to do that more often than a single time out of 98 tosses!” you cheered him on with an encouraging smile.

Feeling slightly sweaty and tired you stumbled towards the bench that the coaches were seated on.

“I love that kid, but daaaaaaaaamn~!” you whined as soon as you reached them, optioning to lie on the floor instead of taking a seat on the bench.

“Maybe you should’ve taken it easier today (y/l/n)” Nekomata chuckled with a glint of amusement in his eyes.

“Pffft~ I just need to rest for a bit and then I’ll be good to go, old man” you commented while reveling in the coldness of the floor, closing your eyes in satisfaction.

Feeling something cold and slightly wet touching your cheeks you opened your eyes, and found Naoi pressing a water bottle against your skin.

“Thanks” you mumbled, grabbing it and chucking down almost the entire bottle.

“You’re really out of shape huh?” Naoi taunted

“Shut your face, I haven’t been able to do anything for a long time, so of course I’m not up to par with the boys!” you retaliated with a small glare

emptying the bottle you threw it at him, where it harmlessly bounced off.

“Anyways, how is your back?” he questioned, ignoring your glare and the bottle since he was quite frankly more than used to your attitude.

“So-so~ it’s aching a bit at the moment, but it’s better than it’s been for a long time” you said with a small grin, stretching your body.

“Also I’ve got this freaking badass scar now!” your grin widened.

“You really are something else; scars aren’t normally something that people are excited about!” Naoi mused.

“Well…” you started, giving him a sideways glance.

“I try to think of it like this; there’s nothing I can do about the scar, therefore it’s simply easier to deal with it if I choose to treasure it as a visible memory of something that happened in my life~!” 

“besides it really does look badass…” you mumbled the last part with a small pout

you heard both coaches chuckle and saw them shaking their heads from your peripheral vision.  
“Something else indeed” you heard Nekomata mutter. 

You closed your eyes again, and enjoyed the sound of sneakers squeaking against the gym floor and the murmur of yells from the team.

You felt someone’s shadow tower over you, and directed your attention to them.  
“Yes my titan child~!” you hummed while spreading out your limbs, positioning yourself like a starfish.

“Senpai can you toss to me again?” Lev asked bending himself slightly over your body.

Well, you’ve had a few minutes to relax so you guess there wouldn’t be any harm in helping him some more, besides you could use the practice as well.

“Sur-“you started, but were cut off by a certain motherly libero.

“No” his voice rang out clearly

“eeeeeeeeh?” you and Lev both exclaimed 

“Why not Yaku? I’m not that tired, and I need to get back on the court before I go insane or something, from lack of volleyball practice!” you added, trying to convince him.

“You shouldn’t strain yourself on the first day back!” he answered crossing his arms over his chest.

“I’m not straining myself” you sighed, even though that wasn’t completely truthful.

“…”

You groaned and stared up at the libero, hoping that he would change his mind soon, so that you could get back to practicing.

“OH!” Lev exclaimed all of a sudden with wide eyes.

“Hmmm~?” both you and Yaku turned to look at the middle blocker.

“Senpai I think I know why Yaku-san doesn’t want you to toss to me!” he said with childish glee

“Uhmmm…okay?” you answered, quite confused as to what reason Lev had come up with.

“He’s jealous that I’m the one you’ve been tossing to all this time~!” Lev grinned.

“…”

“…”

-SILENCE-

“Lev as fucking cute that is to assume you probably shouldn’t have said that aloud” you said, barely being able to contain your laughter.

The coaches openly chuckled and the rest of the team had stopped their own practice to witness what would happen next, either amused or exasperated looks plastered on their faces.

“LEV!” Yaku fumed, clearly trying to kill him with his icy glare.

The tall middle blocker simply tilted his head cutely and looked at him obliviously, before looking down at you again.

“Eh? What did I do wrong senpai?” he enquired innocently.

“When will you learn not to piss of cat mom?” you asked him instead of answering his obvious question, this earned you a brief confused look, before Lev was sent crumbling to the ground by a particularly hard jab to his ribs.

Well, it wouldn’t really be practice without Yaku reprimanding Lev in some way or another, but aside from those moments they actually had a pretty good friendship.

Turning your focus to a certain pudding head you yelled out loud enough for him to hear  
“Oi, Kenma would you mind giving me a couple of tosses while these two fight it out?” pointing nonchalantly at Yaku and Lev.

Kenma looked at you and nodded, muttering a small “sure”

“Little warning here Kenma, I’m not sure how this is going to turn out, I haven’t been able to practice in a while after all” you called out to him as you took your place on the court.

“It’s alright (y/n)-san” he mumbled

‘okay, you can’t have gotten that bad, you’ve got this (y/n)’ you tried to encourage yourself.

You weren’t exactly a volleyball genius but you had learned a lot from helping the boys out when you had basically been forced by Kuroo to join the club in your first year. 

You never thought that it would actually play a bigger part in your life than simple club activities  
but in the end volleyball snuck its way into your heart and decided to stay there for good.

“I’m ready Kenma!” you said while preparing to take a running start.

‘Let Kenma do most of the thinking, and just let your body move by itself’ you repeated in your mind.  
You reached the point where you were going to spike from and jumped  
‘I’ve got this!’

“WHACK!”

“…”

“AWWWWW SHIIIIIIIIIIIT!” you grumbled, falling on your butt.

“LANGUAGE!” 

“I JUST TOOK A VOLLEYBALL TO THE FACE, AND FELL ON MY BUTT! I’M SORRY THAT I FEEL THE NEED TO SWEAR FOR A BIT, MOTHER!” you roared, rubbing your hands over your face to ease the pain.  
You stood up, slapped your palms to your cheeks in determination and turned to the setter.

“Another one Kenma!” you demanded.

“Okay” he mumbled and picked up another ball.

-Small time skip-

This continued on for a few tries, each time you fucked up differently, you really needed to get yourself back in the game.

In moments like these you were pretty glad that Kenma and you were friends; otherwise he would probably be annoyed with you for messing up and ordering him around. Not to mention most likely have refused tossing to you in the first place  
Jogging to your start position you calmed your breathing and nodded to Kenma once again, heading off when the timing was just right

‘come on, hit it, hit it, hit it!’

“WHAM!”

You could feel the slight stinging sensation in your palm and was about to celebrate that you managed to get it right, when you heard the ball hit flesh and saw it flying back over the net.

You locked eyes with your captain and his smug face for a second before diving after the ball as quickly as you could, not really caring about anything other than keeping the ball in the air.

You managed to save it and send it soaring towards the net, but thanks to your slightly aching back you couldn’t get up fast enough.

“Shit” you muttered under your breath.

Volleyball really had become close to an obsession to you, and there was no way you were going to give anything than your best when it came to playing.

“YAMAMOTO KEEP THAT BALL IN THE AIR OR I SWEAR TO GOD I’LL MURDER SOMEONE!” you yelled at the poor wing spiker that happened to be closest to the ball out of all the team members.

“YOU GOT IT (Y/N)!” he yelled back before running for the ball, getting ready to spike it.

Seconds later the ball slammed down on the other side of the court and you cheered loudly from your position on the floor.

Getting to your feet you noticed that Yaku, Kai, Fukunaga and Lev had joined Kuroo.

“Inuoka, Shiba get your butts on court! Kitty captain wants to play!” you grinned at the two first years, and waited for them to take their places before turning your attention to your precious setter.

“You in for a practice match Kenma?” you asked.

“The teams would be uneven if I sat out” he answered with small shrug before getting into position.

“(Y/l/n) you better not get yourself sent to the hospital!” Naoi teased, although you could hear the serious undertone in his voice.

“It’s just a little practice match” you waved him off, and then turned to face Kuroo

“Besides, that dork over there is the one who started it, and I’ll sure as hell be the one to finish it!” pointing at your smirking captain, for dramatic effect.

“Bring it kitten~!” Kuroo teased from the other side of the net

“I will, Just don’t start crying when I wreck you, captain!” 

from the sidelines the two coaches watched your friendly teasing with the captain, Nekomata chuckling and Naoi shaking his head.

“I guess everything is back to normal now, huh?” Naoi mumbled, with a small smile

“it sure is” Nekomata said.  
he was about to continue when he was interrupted by your loud scream of

“YOU BETTER TAKE THAT BACK BEFORE I COME OVER THERE AND SNAP YOUR NECK”

“Okay, calm down (y/l/n), there’s half an hour left of practice so if you want to get this match going you better hurry up” Nekomata called from the bench, trying to defuse the situation.

You had a fiery temper when it came to volleyball, and even though you’ve been resting in a lousy hospital bed for weeks, you were going to give it your all and not let your teammates down.

“LET’S DO THIS!” you roared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "We're like the blood in our veins. We must flow without stopping. Keep the oxygen moving and your mind working."


	6. Kohai Conversation - Special Chapter

”I’m telling you bro, this is a fight you can’t win!” you said with a cocky smile, while sliding your phone across the table so that Noa could examine it.

“I’ll admit that this is kind of cute, but I’ve got something way better to show you!” your brother exclaimed shoving his own phone towards you.

You grabbed the phone and froze at the picture he had snapped.

“What the fuck?” 

“he’s just so adorable when he smiles, right?” Noa exclaimed with hearts in his eyes.

“If by adorable you mean, he looks like he’s going to murder someone, then yeah”  
your brothers opinions were really biased when it came to his kohais

“by the way, I’ve got to show you this picture I snapped the other day Noa~!” you commented while making grabbing motions for your phone.

He handed you your phone and waited for you to find the picture you were talking about.  
Throwing your phone back to him and almost hitting him in the face you leaned back in your seat and awaited your brother’s reaction.

You counted down mentally, 3, 2, 1…

And there went your brother, leaning over the table while smacking his palms wildly against the table, roaring with laughter.

“How?” was his only chocked out question

“It’s a little something called bribe, I’m pretty sure you’ve heard about it brother dearest~!” you answered, resting your chin on your hands, feeling pleased with his reaction.

Noa had calmed down slightly.  
At least until he looked at the picture again, and was sent into another fit of snorts and laughter.

“Are you sure you didn’t threaten him or something? THIS IS FREAKING AMAZING” 

“You make me sound mean as fuck, all I did was promise him some extra tosses next time at practice” you pointed out to the male.  
He simply hummed in response, not really needing any further explanation.

 

“Regardless, I’m still pretty sure I can top that!” Noa commented with a smug smirk, looking from the photo and back to you.

Well if that face didn’t invite you to a good old round of fisticuffs you didn’t know what did, you thought sarcastically with a small smile twitching at your lips.  
Therefore you decided to counter with the only thing your mind could come up with at that moment, a jab at his height.

“Pffft~ sure you can munchkin!” You sassed, sending him a small smile.  
His reaction was immediate and in seconds you could feel your body convulsing with unreleased laughter.

it looked like the smirk had literally been slapped right off of his face and he was instead giving you his best delinquent face most likely curtesy of Tanaka.

“FUCKING FIGHT ME!!!” He yelled standing up so fast that he had almost flipped the table, which was basically the reaction you were hoping for.

Waving him off you yawned and gave a reply of  
“How about you sit down and try proving me wrong instead, short stack?” 

You could clearly sense the irritation rolling off him in waves as he snatched his phone from the table and proceeded to scroll through his pictures faster than ever before, pouting and huffing every few seconds.

“I’ll show you” he muttered

you sure knew how to rile your brother up.  
And saying that you weren’t enjoying teasing him would be a flat out lie.  
In fact it only added to the fun.

Your little discussion competition had been going on for hours, but neither you nor your brother would back down from the challenge, both set on proving the greatness of your kohais.

You drummed your fingers slowly on the table awaiting his comeback, glancing at the screen of his phone a couple of times.

“FOUND IT!” he cheered.

You reached for his phone, but instead the device was being pressed up against your face.

“Calm your shit bro! I can’t see anything if you press it against my face!” you protested.

Grabbing his outstretched hand that was holding the phone you moved it to a more decent distance and took in the entirety of what the screen portrayed.

“Oh”

“my”

“fucking”

“god” you breathed.

Noa simply nodded smugly at your expression.

 

You rubbed your eyes, not believing what you were seeing.

“Isn’t this…” you mumbled  
Noa made a noise letting you know that he wanted you to continue your sentence.

 

“…That tall kohai you’re always complaining about? The one who’s a total dick towards you and all that?”

Your brother folded his arms and nodded frantically, while wearing the biggest grin possible.

“It’s not his fault though, he can’t help his tsundere ways~!” your brother defended.

The photo on Noa’s phone pictured Tsukishima actually smiling at something or someone, obviously not aware that your brother was being a creep and taking pictures of him, and damn he looked freaking adorable.

The freckled first year from your brothers school might still be your favorite when it came down to cuteness, but this photo was definitely a strong competitor in you and your brothers little kohai competition.

“This is golden Noa!” you whispered in awe

Noa simply puffed out his chest, and started blabbering on about how his precious kohais were all just too good, too pure for this world and all of its hardships.

“But…” you interrupted

he stopped midsentence and stared at you, not really expecting you to have anything that could beat the latest photo.

You pushed his hand away from you and picked up your own phone again.

“I believe my three cat babies wearing matching cat ears, actually posing for the camera beats your distracted smiling beanstalk by a long shot” you mused.

His jaw dropped and it took him some time to stutter out a sentence.  
“I d-don’t believe you”

“well you better take a look at this then” you said with a shit-eating grin, flashing him the before mentioned picture.

In the picture, Lev, Inuoka, and Shibayama stood side by side, Lev in the middle having his arms slung around his smaller teammate’s shoulders, him and Inuoka wearing large grins while the poor little Shiba looked absolutely embarrassed with a small blush dusting his cheeks.  
And to complete the image all three of them had cat ears placed on top of their heads. Curtesy of you of course

you’re brother sighed loudly after having stared at the picture for a couple of minutes.

“It’s not fair that your kohais are so well behaved, Yama-chan is the only one of mine with decent self-control~!” Noa whined, fake tears sprouting from his eyes.

you tapped your chin a couple of times trying to come up with something that could cheer up your brother, until a rumbling sound made you aware of just how hungry you were getting

“How about we call this a draw and agree that we’ve both got amazing kohais? I’m starting to get pretty hungry!” You patted him comfortingly on the back and stood up from the table with a smile.

“Sure~ How about we go out for dinner? I really don’t feel like cooking anything at the moment” he said, bouncing right back to his normally cheerful demeanor.

“If you grab our jackets I’ll get the keys and we can head out now?”

Nodding in reply, it didn’t take long for you guys to grab what you needed and exit your brother’s small apartment.

You were simply visiting for the weekend trying to get a small break from living in Tokyo with all of the constant noise and so forth, and that’s when a little comment revolving around your kohais had quickly turned into a full-blown show and tell. 

Walking towards the nearest fast-food chain you turned to your brother and asked something that had been on your mind for a while now.

“Hey Noa?”

You didn’t wait for his reply but simply continued voicing out your thoughts.

“Won’t four eyes break your face in if he ever discovers that you were taking creepy photos of him?”

You hadn’t met any of the first years from Karasuno yet, but you’ve heard a lot about each of them from your brother.

“I mean, freckles, creepy smile, and the sunshine crow baby might be pretty chill about it, except for finding it embarrassing, but from what you’ve told me the tall one already seems to be more than annoyed with you!”

Noa stiffly nodded and turned towards you.

“That’s why he can never know!” he said in a grave tone

you simply sighed and rubbed his back for a bit.

Your brother really wasn’t the smartest person you knew, but life would definitely not be as fun without him at your side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "We're like the blood in our veins. We must flow without stopping. Keep the oxygen moving and your mind working."


	7. Rivals? What Rivals?

”so tired and…hungry…must…have…food” 

you were exhausted, sweaty, hungry and in your own opinion on the brink of dying.

“Quit your whining (y/l/n), you’re not going to die” 

“I’m pretty damn sure that I am cactus coach!” you huffed out, it may have been your own choice to participate in the practice match, but that didn’t mean you weren’t allowed to complain afterwards.

“What did you call me, brat?!?” Naoi asked, his eye twitching slightly

“You fuc-“you felt a shiver run down your spine, okay okay, you got it mama cat, saving the swearing for later.

Clearing your throat you tried again.

“You heard me, Naoi, you prickly headed dumbass!” You were hungry and disappointed that your team lost the practice match and now this bara piece of shit was telling you not to complain and whine? Well fuck that.

Before he could say anything else, you heaved a big sigh and mumbled tiredly  
“You know what? Just forget I said anything, I’m too exhausted to fight with you right now coach!” 

Since you were actually calling him coach for once Naoi figured that you were being serious and probably needed a few minutes to cool down, so no matter how much he wanted to scold you, he decided to shut his mouth and let you be for the meantime.

You were once again lying on the floor next to the coaches, waiting for the guys to finish up cleaning the gym so that you could go home.

Normally you would’ve helped but you were really not feeling up for it at the moment, and you were a bit salty that you had lost the match.

Feeling a slight nudge to your leg you looked up at whoever was disrupting your little pity party.

“Could you stop disturbing my moment of self-wallowing, Yamamoto?” you asked, tiredly looking up at him. 

“Oi, it was only a practice match, no need to be so moody (y/n)” he took a seat next to you on the floor, with a slight grin adorning his face

“I know, I know” you groaned

“But?” he inquired

you placed your hands on top of your face and grumbled out something the wing spiker couldn’t decipher 

“What was that?”

You removed your hands and repeated yourself

“I said that I’m just really hungry and I’m pretty sure my stomach is trying to devour my body from the inside” your stomach rumbled loudly in response.

“Also I was really looking forward to wiping off captain bedheads stupid smirk” you added in a low voice

“dumbass” well if that didn’t improve your mood you had no idea what might please note the sarcasm used in that sentence

You felt something land on your stomach and grabbed it; curious as to what it could be

a chocolate bar?

“Eh? First you call me a dumbass and then you give me food?” you looked up at Yamamoto who was giving you an proud nod while crossing his arms

“I’m not really that fond of chocolate though” you pointed out, looking down at it.

“…”

“…”

you might as well have pricked the wing spiker with a needle and deflated his ego that way.

“THEN GIVE IT BACK IF YOU’RE GOING TO BE SO UNGRATEFUL” he yelled at you, an irk mark appearing on his forehead.

He grabbed for the bar multiple times but each time you held it out of his reach

“I didn’t say I wasn’t going to eat it!” you whined

“WELL I CHANGED MY MIND SO YOU CAN’T HAVE IT!”

“Too late” you said, quickly un-wrapping the bar and eating it before he could take it back.

When you were done chewing you poked your tongue out at him.

“You should not try to steal to hunters prey” you mused

“WHAT THE HELL IS THAT SUPOSSED TO MEAN?” he roared in your face 

“damn, that sounded a lot better in my head” you murmured thoughtfully ignoring his outburst.

Stretching your arms, you sat up and patted him on the back while he was still raging on about how annoying and confusing you could be at times.

“Yo”

“WHAT?” Yamamoto was fuming and giving you the best glare he could muster up.

“Thanks for the food!” You gave him a kind smile until your stomach decided to voice its opinion again.  
You groaned poking your grumbling stomach, trying to make it stop being so noisy.  
You had just fed it for goodness sake.

You angled your head so that you could see some of the other team members.  
From the look of it they would be done with the cleaning in a couple of minutes and then you would finally be able to get some proper food.

[DING!]

“Oh seems like I have friends” you voiced out while lying down on the floor again so that you could reach for your bag next to the bench containing your phone.

[From: xxxxxxxx]  
[To: (Y/n)]

‘I heard that you’re back, good luck’

“what the hell?” you mumbled, normally you had everyone’s phone numbers stored in your phone, and from what the text read this person knew you enough to know that you had been out of commission for the last couple of weeks.

And you didn’t remember giving out your number to anyone lately.

[From: (Y/n)]  
[To: xxxxxxxx] 

‘Uhmmm…yeah…thanks, who is this though?’

“Okay everyone gather around!” pressing send you directed your attention to the coaches, it seemed like you had the wait for a bit before you could figure out who had texted you anyways, so you might as well be a good manager and listen up.

“You did well today, morning practice will start at the usual time, and I need to see Kuroo, Kai, and (Y/l/n) after this, now get changed boys!” Nekomata dismissed the team and you took your sweet time standing up, and placing yourself in front of the coaches.

“Sooo~? What’s up old man?” you questioned with a small grin.

“You never were one for patience (y/l/n)” The old coach chuckled.

“Wait until the other two gets here you idiot” Naoi scolded.

you huffed out a “fine” and sat down on the bench, waiting for the boys

finally most of the team came out of the locker room, and you immediately powerwalked your way to them congratulating them on a practice well done, before grabbing the arms of Kai and Kuroo, dragging them with you to the coaches.

“There! Now what’s up, old man?”

“I thought that I might inform you three of something before I let the news reach the rest of the team tomorrow morning” Nekomata said giving the three of you a kind smile

“okay?” you drawled

Naoi sent you a look that meant for you to keep quit and listen up, which you did after rolling your eyes at him.

“I’ve been contacted by a certain school that wants to meet up for a practice game about a week from now”

“Isn’t it a bit late to tell us this now coach?” Kai questioned

“Yes, but I thought it would be for the better if I waited to deliver the news when our little spitfire of a manager came back”

“Ah, I see” was Kai’s reply

you raised your hand, waiting for a change to ask the coaches something, which you got as soon as they directed their gaze to you.

“So I get that I’m part of the team and all that, but why did I have to be here for you guys to tell us?” if it was that important couldn’t they just have told the team and asked them to text you about it or something? Not that you minded really, it made you feel pretty damn important to be honest.

“You’ll know soon enough” Nekomata mused.

Perfect, just perfect, the old man sure liked to take advantage of your impatience.

“So what school?” you sighed

“oh, just some old rivals of ours” the coach grinned.

The captain and vice-captain instantly knew who Nekomata meant while you just, well stood there, clueless as to who he meant, I mean you knew Nekoma had a rival school and all that, but you could never quite remember the name.

“Well, this will be interesting” Kuroo voiced, placing his arms behind his head in a lazy gesture.

“Indeed” Kai added with a small smile

“well that was all kids, now be on your way, and don’t be late for morning practice” Nekomata ended before waving you off.

When you exited the gym you said your goodbyes to the vice-captain, and walked over to Kenma who was waiting for Kuroo and you by the school gates.

You jabbed Kuroo gently in the ribs to get his attention.

“Uhmmm…not to make it seem like I’m dumb or haven’t been paying attention or anything, but who are our rivals again?” you asked, sporting a confused and a bit embarrassed expression.

Kenma spared you a small glance before directing his attention back to his game and Kuroo looked at you for a few seconds before bursting into laughter. 

“I’M SERIOUS! IT’S NOT MY FAULT THAT I SUCK AT REMEMBERING NAMES IN GENERAL!” you yelled.  
That didn’t exactly stop his laughter.

“Ha-ha very funny, now shut your face and just tell me!” you exclaimed grumpily, trying to get him to answer your god damn question.  
“So you really don’t remember?” Kuroo mused, placing his hand atop of your head.

“Would I be asking a question like that risking the embarrassment if I did?” you retorted waving your arms around to slap his hand off of your head.

“Probably not” 

“Exactly, so are you going to tell me or will I have to ask one of the team members that I actually like?” 

“Oh how you wound me kitten” Kuroo chuckled placing a hand dramatically over his heart.  
You gave him a blank stare and turned your attention to Kenma.

“Sooo~ Kenma, my friendly friend of a team mate that I actually like and respect, what is the name of our rival school again?” you said leaning a bit closer to him so that you could watch him play his game while you waited for an answer.

“Karasuno” he muttered, not bothered the slightest by your closeness, since you would always do stuff like that.

“Hmmm….Karasuno….Karasuno….I’m pretty sure I should remember that name for some reason”

“Maybe because they’re our rivals?” Kuroo cut in.

You sent him a glare before you replied  
“I know that now, but I’m certain that’s not it, dumbass”

You placed your hands over your face, while grumbling about how it wasn’t fair that you were so bad with names.

The three of you continued walking to the station, Kuroo bothering you, while you searched your mind for an answer as to why the name Karasuno seemed so awfully important and familiar.

“Karasuno….Karasuno ….Karas-“you froze in place.

Turning slowly towards Kuroo and Kenma who had stopped walking, when they noticed you weren’t following

“Guys” you groaned

“I just realized why the name is so familiar” You facepalmed and bent down on your knees, feeling a bit ashamed that you had forgotten.

“Oh ho?” 

“Karasuno is where all of my crows are from! I completely forgot that Nekoma and Karasuno had that whole rivalry thing going on” you mumbled through your hands that were still covering your face.

“All of your crows? So you know these guys?“ Kuroo questioned, a bit intrigued that you had some knowledge about the team.

“Oh did I never mention that?” Standing up, you brushed off your outfit and continued walking to the train station.

Kuroo simply shook his head, while Kenma quietly listened in on the conversation.

“Well, while I was recovering I stayed at Noa’s place since our mom wouldn’t let me be alone until she was certain that I could take care of myself…”

Kuroo hummed in acknowledgement.

“Noa still had to attend school and his practices, and I was bored most of the time just staying in so when I complained to him about it, he ended up dragging some of his team mates home with him as a solution…”

You sighed.

“And what do you know? It just so happens that Noa goes to Karasuno…”

“So I got to know some of the guys and they’re really nice…”

“Nicer than us?” Kuroo teased 

“Nicer than you at least!” you replied, sticking out your tongue at him.

“So we’re going up against not only our rivals, but your brother will be there as well?” he smirked

“yeah”

“Well, this is going to be fun”

“I by fun you mean Noa and I will be yelling shit at each other while you guys play, then yes it’s going to be tons of fun!”

“It can’t be that bad, can it?” Kuroo drawled

“Only if you lose” You said with a serious face that sent shivers down both boys’ spines.

“Then we better not lose, eh kitten?” he said draping his arm around your shoulder, flashing you a confident grin.  
“I haven’t seen Karasuno practice so I don’t know how good they are, but I’m certain that you guys won’t let me down” 

“Don’t you mean let the team down?”

“No, I meant what I said! ‘cause if we lose then Noa will have bragging rights for the next couple of months, and he’s unbearable when he’s acting all high and mighty!” you said with a look of displeasure painted upon your face.

Walking a bit faster you looked over your shoulder and called out to the boys  
“Anyways, enough chit chatting about that, we should hurry up if we want to catch the next train, and I really don’t feel like being late for another train today!”

The thought of Nekoma playing against Karasuno put you in a good mood, finally you would have a chance to show of your boys’ skills to your brother, and hopefully leave him in tears at the end of the match, oh how sweet indeed that would be.


	8. A Furry Friend and Random Encounters

”See you tomorrow guys” you said waving at Kenma and Kuroo, turning in another direction, parting ways with them.

“Don’t forget my lunch!” Kuroo yelled just before you turned a corner.

“Fuck, I thought he would forget about that shit” you mumbled to yourself, slightly regretting making such a dumb deal with him.

Well it looked like you would have to stay up a bit later than you felt like tonight if you had to make both his and your lunch for the next day, you would probably not be able to sneak your way around this one.

Groaning loudly, not caring that passersby’s stared at you weirdly, you trudged onwards on your way to your apartment, feeling annoyed that you couldn’t just eat some food and drag your ass to bed as soon as you came home.

‘Meow’

a cat? You perked up instantly, whipping your head from side to side.

You took a detour from your previous route, wanting to at least spot the presumed cat.

“Here kitty, kitty, kitty” you cooed trying to attract the attention of the animal

‘Meow’   
You narrowed your eyes and followed the meowing, which got gradually louder and louder, turning corners and squeezing through narrow alleyways.  
Finally you spotted a small tabby, walking around leisurely, probably in the search for some food.

“Well aren’t you a little cutie” you said to the kitten with a mellow voice as to not scare it away.  
You crouched down and stretched your hand out so that the tabby could sniff your fingers.

“…”

Instead of the expected sniff, you ended up with a set of slightly bleeding scratch marks.

“OW! FUCK! SHIT! PISS! WHAT DID YOU DO THAT FOR YOU LITTLE BASTARD!?!” you growled at the ‘innocent’ little creature.

This earned you hiss, and the cat tried to scramble away from you as quickly as possible.

“OH NO YOU DON’T YOU LITTLE SHIT STAIN!” you roared taking after the cat in a sprint.

You were not going to let this little fucker off that easily, it could at least let you pet it as a sort of apology.

You ran down the street, bumping shoulders with at least a dozen of unsuspecting pedestrians, nearly getting run over by a car once or twice and tripping over various objects.

You entered through another alleyway and immediately spotted the cat, calmly sitting at the back cleaning itself, as if you hadn’t just chased it through streets and alleyways with a speed rivaling a squirrel on drugs. 

finally you had cornered the cat, leaving it with no other option than to fucking deal with it.

“Listen up kitty cat! I’m sick and tired of your bullshit, so you better fucking stay there and…” you pointed at it with the most intimidating glare you could muster up “LET ME LOVE YOU!” your voice raising in volume with every word you spoke.

You exhaled loudly trying to gain control over your breathing while still maintaining eye contact with your soon to be victim. 

You heard snickers at the opening of the alley and turned around with a confused expression, the cat seizing its chance and running between your legs before you could even think about reaching out to grab it.  
“God fucking damn it” you grumbled loudly.

Finally taking a proper look at the people that was in your opinion the only reason the cat decided to run away, you lost your glare instantly and slowly felt your lips twitch upwards, that small twitch soon turned into a grin, which soon bloomed into ridiculous laughter.

You doubled over, slapping your knees while pointing at one of the perpetrators.  
Tears streamed from your eyes, while you heaved to get enough air into your lungs so that you could continue laughing.

“EH? Akaashi why are they laughing at you?” one of the males asked his friend with a clueless expression, not quite getting the fact that he was the one being laughed at.

“I’m certain that I’m not the one being laughed at Bokuto-san” Akaashi deadpanned.

“O-owl” you chocked out, still roaring with laughter.

Akaashi simply looked at Bokuto with a look that said ‘See, I told you’

it took some time for the gears in his head to process the situation, but when it did…

“HEY! HEY! HEY! WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING AT ME?!?” Bokuto yelled pointing shakily at you, honestly a bit flustered that you were laughing at him.

You held up your hand signaling him to give you a minute to regain your breath.  
Standing up you wiped your tears from your eyes, still chuckling a bit with every exhale.

“Sorry about that, it’s just…you know? Your hair dude!” you tried to explain yourself.

He stopped his pointing, and perked up in an instant, grinning at you vigorously.

“IT’S SUPER COOL RIGHT?!?” He exclaimed Using wild hand gestures, looking pretty damn excited in your opinion; you could almost imagine the freaking sparkles surrounding him.

‘Well he seems a bit bipolar’ you though to yourself.

You coughed into your hand and cleared your throat before answering him.   
“Yeah, it is in fact pretty amazing!” you said with a small grin, actually meaning every word that you had said.

“RIGHT? RIGHT? See Akaashi, I’M AMAZING!” Bokuto flailed his arms around while speaking loudly to his friend.

“That’s not what they said, Bokuto-san” Akaashi answered with a small sigh.

While the two of them discussed what you had said or hadn’t said, you directed your gaze to his hair once again, it really made you wonder if it was natural like Kuroos or if he actually took the time to style his hair like that every single day.   
Damn, that would be some serious dedication in your opinion.

“Yo!” you said, catching both guys’ attention and interrupting what seemed to be a conversation that would’ve dragged on for a long ass time if you hadn’t said something.

“Not to be rude or anything but it’s getting pretty late and I have a lot of stuff to do, sooo~”  
you left it off at that, and passed the two boys, turning around to give them a cheeky smile and a mock salute before running off.

Sadly it only took you five seconds to embarrass yourself.

You might wonder what happened.   
Well, it just so happened that you tried jumping over a small rail, for that cool effect you wanted to leave them with, and face planted the ground when your foot got caught on the top of it.

“Aw, fuuuuuuuu-“you hissed, rubbing your face to soothe the pain.

Reminding yourself that you most likely still had their attention, you scrambled to your feet.

“I TOTALLY MEANT TO DO THAT!!!” you yelled before running off again, this time being careful not to run into, or trip over anything.

“…”

“…”

“WOW! THEY MEANT TO DO THAT?” Bokuto yelled in awe at his friend and team mate.

The fall had looked pretty epic, and in his opinion you had landed in such a way that it technically could’ve been intentional, he just couldn’t figure out why you had decided to fall over on purpose.

“I don’t think so Bokuto-san” Akaashi answered honestly and started walking in the opposite direction of where you had run off to.

Bokuto didn’t follow at once since he was still staring down the street you had disappeared down, wondering what had just happened.

Moments later Bokuto whipped his head from side to side looking for his friend, when he spotted him walking a good couple of feet ahead of him, he set into a sprint to reach him.

“OI, AKAASHI! WAIT UP” He yelled chasing after the setter.

 

-Small timeskip & back to you-

 

You leaned on a brick wall; pretty exhausted from all the running you had done today

“Well, that could’ve gone better” you chastised yourself 

“There’s no use being embarrassed about it though…” Breathing a sigh of both exhaustion and relief, you wiped the small drops of sweat from your forehead with your sleeve.

“I’ll probably never meet them again, so I’ll just pretend like nothing happened” you muttered to yourself, looking up at the sky that had darkened considerately since you had parted with Kenma and Kuroo.

‘Meow’

“You have got to be shitting me!” you exclaimed 

Turning your head to the side you faced the noise.  
And as expected there it was, the tabby that you had chased earlier had returned, probably to mock you or something.

You groaned, you were pretty fucking done with this cat, you didn’t even feel like petting it anymore after everything that had happened.

You crouched down and stared directly into its eyes.

“I will call you doughnut, because HOLY SHIT, I DO NOT FEEL LIKE LOOKING AT YOUR DUMB SMUG FACE RIGHT NOW!”

It sat leisurely and kept your gaze locked with its own.  
Grumbling for a bit you shoved your hand that had been scratched earlier in its face.

“SEE?!? Do you even know what you did doughnut, do you? Huh?”

‘Meow’

it leaned its head against your hand and started rubbing itself against you, as a way of telling you that you should start petting it, preferably as soon as possible.

“You think you’re so damn cute and forgivable, huh? Well news flash Doughnut, you’re a bit of a dick!” 

regardless of the dick-ish moves the cat had started earlier you started running your hands through its soft fur.

“I’m not doing this because I forgive you or anything, this is just my reward for all of my efforts”

not like the cat would understand you, but you just had to make it clear that you didn’t approve of its bullshit. 

‘Meow’

you took that as a ‘yes I know I’m a cruel little ball of fur and I respect your decisions to not forgive me (y/n)’ standing up from your crouched position that was starting to be uncomfortable, you brushed your hands on your clothing for good measure.

“Well Doughnut, I better head home, take care of yourself you little bastard!” you chimed at the cat before shooing it away, and trying to figure out which way would be the fastest way to your apartment.

Looking around you sweat dropped.

“Well shit”

You recognized absolutely nothing, and to be honest you hadn’t been paying attention to where you had run off to.

Okay first plan of action, walk around until you either find your way, or stumble upon a person looking kind enough to tell you where exactly you were.

If that fails, then you would have no other option than to go for your emergency solution to these kinds of things, you groaned slightly at the mere thought.

This time you would surely find your way home without any help.

 

-Small time skip-

 

It was getting really late, and so far nothing looked familiar to you.

‘Did I really run that far?’ you questioned to yourself.

All you wanted was to go home, eat some kind of dinner, and then head straight to bed, maybe taking a nice hot shower before that, if you felt like it.

To make matters worse, you hadn’t passed anyone that wasn’t looking way too suspicious in your opinion for you to dare approach them.

Taking a determined breath you took your phone out of your pocket.  
Your pride was important, but at the moment you really didn’t feel like walking around random streets with creepy connecting alleyways and what not.

Dialing a number you lifted your phone to your ear and listened to the phones dial tone while waiting for the person on the other line to pick up.

“Hello?” you heard a tired voice coming from the other end of the phone.

“So Uhmmm…listen up, okay? And don’t say anything until I’m done!” you stumbled a bit on your words, the other person presumably already knew what was going on, but it was still kind of embarrassing that this wasn’t you first time getting lost and having to ask him for help.

You heard some shuffling on the other end, and before long you heard his voice again.  
“I’m putting on my shoes now, are you standing near any signs?” the voice mumbled

“How do you know I’m lost? I could just be calling to chat for a while or something” you whined

there was a slight pause.

“At half past 12 at night?”

Wow, it was later than you thought; maybe you should have been smart enough to check the time on your phone before calling, albeit it was a bit too late for that now though. 

“I guess you’re right, just Uhmmm…please come and find me, I’m tired and I want to go home soon!” you sighed, today sure had been way more eventful than you could’ve ever foreseen.

“Just keep me on the phone and I’ll find you, okay?” you heard a door slam in the background and assumed that the male had already set out to escort you back to your apartment.

You gave him as detailed a description of your surroundings as possible, and soon enough you could see a figure walking towards you, holding a phone to their ear.

You narrowed your eyes, making sure that you weren’t going to run towards some random creep coincidently walking down the street at this time of night.

“Yo, Can you see me?” you waved your arm that wasn’t holding your phone in the air.

“Yeah” came the simple reply, and the silhouette lazily waved back.

Hanging up seconds later, you sprinted towards to person, basically throwing yourself at him.

“Thanks for finding me…” you pulled yourself away from him and looked into his narrow eyes.  
Ruffling his dirty blonde hair to the best of your abilities, a small smile pulled at your lips.

“You’re a fucking lifesaver Akinori!”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t mention it! We’ve been friends for how long now? 4 years? And you still get lost, geez it’s a wonder your parents let you move out on your own!” he answered with a small yawn at the end of his sentence.

“Would you just take me home instead of insulting my lousy sense of direction?” you grumbled tugging a bit on his jacket.

He simply nodded with a sleepy expression plastered onto his face.  
After half an hour of walking he had brought you home safely, though he immediately left your apartment to go home to his own bed and get some more sleep, even though you offered him to stay at your place for the night.

As soon as you had closed and locked the door behind you, you went to your small kitchen grabbed some leftovers and heated them up in the microwave.

“Uuuuuuuuugh…” 

it had been a long day.

First you had been late, curtesy of your brother, and then you had to live through boring lessons before you could get to the most exciting part of your high school life, volleyball practice.

You spaced out for a bit and mindlessly rubbed your back, still feeling a dull ache from all of the physical activity that you had put yourself through today.

Oh, yeah, then you had helped Lev out at practice, Kenma helped you, you ended up starting a little practice match. Mainly because Kuroo couldn’t mind his own damn business.

Then later on you had chased the little furry shit of a cat now named Doughnut around the area, meet owl boy and his sidekick…  
thinking of the two of them, did you ever catch their names?  
Oh well! If you did you sure as hell couldn’t remember them now.

then there was your epic fall, more running, meeting up with the tabby again, a ton of walking, and in the end you had to call Akinori to find your way home, all in all, this had been a pretty interesting day.

[Beep! Beep! Beep!]

You snapped out of your little recap and grabbed to food from the microwave and almost shoveled it down, you might have been hungry but sleep seemed way more tempting at the moment, so you might as well get to that as soon as possible.

 

You finished dinner in record time, and changed into some more comfortable clothes, throwing yourself on your bed afterwards.

 

You know that you ought to not only take a shower, but also do your homework, read up on notes from Nekomata and Naoi, do the dishes, and last but not least prepare your captains lunch for tomorrow, but at the moment you could only think of how comfortable you were.   
Snuggling into one of your pillows you soon feel into a much needed slumber.


	9. The Calm Before The Storm

  
  
  


You woke up the next day, tired as all hell and basically feeling like shit.  
Reaching for your phone you looked at the time.

[5:50]

Well fuck, normally you would’ve been able to sleep for at least 30 more minutes, but you reminded yourself that past you had chosen sleep over the things that you had planned to do the night before, so now you really had no other choice but to get your ass moving and prepare for the day that was ahead of you.

You glared down at your phone, as if that would make time rewind.  
Only now noticing that you had received two texts.

 

[From: TsunTsun Trash]  
[To: Sir Douche Lord]  
‘GOOOOOOD MOOOOORNING~! ♥(ˆ⌣ˆԅ) so did your coach tell you about the practice match next week?’

You typed in a reply of

‘Morning bro, yeah the rest of the team, excluding ‘Bedhead’ and ‘Best-senpai’, won’t know until later though, does your boys know yet?’

  


[DING!]

[From: TsunTsun Trash]  
[To: Sir Douche Lord]

‘Yup~! And we’ve been practicing like hell ever since ~!’

  


You processed the information.

This would mean that your brother had known and he just decided not to tell you? Tch, He probably thought that it would give them an advantage but to be honest it doesn’t really matter; your boys are strong and you’re sure that they’ll do their absolute best to win.

 

Deciding to check the other text you tapped your screen a couple of times before quickly scanning the message.

[From: xxxxxxxx]  
[To: (y/n)]  
‘So you don’t remember?’

Oh this was from that random number that had sent you the text yesterday, you racked your mind but you still had no idea who it could be.

[From: (y/n)]  
[To: xxxxxxxx]  
‘No? Could you maybe, like, I don’t know just tell me who you are?’

Sending the message you went to your small apartment kitchen, preparing lunch for both yourself and your captain.

“Damn, this is almost like a scene from some kind of shitty shoujo manga…” you chuckled to yourself, slowly cooking the mackerel while the rice cooker was busy preparing the main part of the meal.  
Chopping some vegetables along with other ingredients for the small side dishes, you prepared the rest of the meal in a neat fashion, you might not be the best cook out there, but you sure as hell wanted the food to at least look nice. 

You wiped your hands on your pants and checked your phone again; looks like you still had time to take a shower, and either look through the coaches’ notes or do your homework.

Well, you could probably do your homework before your first class started. Or so you hoped.  
So checking up on your boys’ progress would be your priority for now. 

Digging through your bag for the notes you left them out in plain sight so that you wouldn’t forget about them and hurried up with your shower.  
Minutes later you were seated on your couch, looking through the papers, mindlessly twirling a pen between your fingers.  
“Hmmm…it seems like Lev is still really trying to get the hang of this-”

“The others are progressing steadily though-”

“Not too shabby, not too shabby at all” 

“Now I really can’t wait to see them play!” you muttered with a happy sigh stretching your arms above your head, cracking your back and feeling both a flash of relief and pain.

“Fuuuuuck! Fuck! Fuck-ity! Fuck! Fuck!” you yelped, walking to your kitchen, trying to move your body as little as possible in case that it would hurt even more.  
You quickly located your painkillers and washed a couple of them down with some water, sitting down for a couple of minutes before letting out a small sigh, hopefully your back wouldn’t hold this against you too much during the day. 

You slowly ran a hand through your hair and decided that, you really needed to gather your stuff and head out, unless you wanted a repeat of yesterday.

As soon as you had locked the door and headed out you texted Kenma a quick message that you would actually be on time today.

  
  


-Time skip -

  
  


 

You had met up with Kuroo and Kenma at the station and were now leisurely walking to school with them, speaking animatedly with your captain, wide and uncontrolled hand gestures included.

All was completely normal until the ever so observant Kuroo noticed something, and decided to voice his stupid thoughts.

“Sooo kitten, mind telling what’s up with the bruise on your face?” he poked your forehead a bit, not really giving you a chance to reply before he continued.

“Did you run into something on your way home? Or trip over a trashcan? Ah! Or maybe you got into a fight because of your fiery temper?” he ended with a shit eating grin.

“Eh?” you were momentarily clueless as to what the bedhead was talking about.

That was until you lifted your hand to your face and felt the small rough patch of skin you had scraped the night before when you had face-planted the ground.

“Pffft, whaaaaaaat? Nooo! As if I would do something as dumb as that~!” you exclaimed not entirely meeting his gaze, trying to wave him off.

Kuroo gave you a look that meant that he wouldn’t put it below you to do any of the options he had listed, nor did he believe your bullshit.

“I simply…Uhmmm…fell out of bed and hit my head?” it came out sounding more like a question than a statement.

At that moment Kenma decided to include himself in the conversation.

“You’re a really bad liar (y/n)-san” came his mumbled input.

You wondered if you should just keep up the lie and try to safe your sorry ass from further embarrassment, but decided against it since, well, these guys were your friends, and by now they simply knew you too well. Also Kuroo was still giving you that incredulously look of his

“okay, okay, I guess I could tell you guys what really happened” you sighed.

“But you dorks can’t tease me too much about it, it’s already on my top ten list of embarrassing things I’ve done in my life and I don’t need you guys to give me shit about it!” you mainly pointed that comment at Kuroo, but who knew if Kenma suddenly decided to do a 180 on his personality and tease a bitch up? Tch, yeah right, that was so not going to be the case, but better safe than sorry you guessed.

“So it all started when I encountered this furry little dick!” You started out your explanation in a dramatic voice. Shush, that’s an excellent way to start a sentence.

  
  


-Small time skip since you already know what happened-

  
  


“…And that is the tale of how I ended up with the bruise! Any questions?” you finished off your little recap of last night.

Kenma just shook his head and concentrated on whatever game he had decided to bring today, while you noticed that Kuroo was hunched over and…shaking?

Oh shit? Did your stupidity make him worried? It hadn’t been that painful after all! Was those tears? Was he crying? Geez You really didn’t know how to handle a crying teenage boy! 

On second thought, Kuroo wasn’t exactly the type to cry which just made you even more confused.  
You bent down in front of him, trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with your friend.

“…”  
You were about to try and comfort him, but as soon as you could see his facial expression you stood up and started walking away, dragging a distracted Kenma with you.

“I’m revoking your lunch privileges, you ass!” 

This little shit was literally shaking and crying with laughter, it’s not that you were mad or anything like that, you were just thoroughly embarrassed, and at the moment the only solution you could come up with was to grab to the pudding prince and leave your captain to hopefully choke on his own laughter.

“HEY WAIT UP! IT’S NOT MY FAULT THAT YOUR EVENING ENDED UP BEING SO CAT-ASTROPHIC!” Kuroo yelled as you and Kenma were speeding away from him. More like you were walking away while having a firm grip on Kenma.

You stopped mid-step, and looked back at him over your shoulder, you released Kenma from your grip and placed your hands on your hips slowly shaking your head.

You gave him a cheeky grin and called out to him  
“That pun was the only thing catastrophic here, Kuroo, you could even say it was absolutely Claw-ful”

you paused for a second thinking about the next thing you were about to say.

“…but I guess you can still have your damn lunch or something” you wouldn’t want the food to go to waste and since he probably hadn’t brought any lunch himself, it would be up to you and your unbelievable kind self to feed him, or something along those lines.

You turned on your heel and rested the palm of your hands on Kenma’s shoulders and started pushing him forward. Walking quickly turned into a sprinting and just before you turned to walk through the school gates, you once again yelled out to him.

“And unless you want to be late Kuroo I suggest that you lay off the puns and get that lanky body of yours in gear!”

The school bell sounding seconds later, proving your point.

 

  
  


-Time skip-

  
  


 

The next couple of hours had been rather uneventful, your classes had been boring as all hell, but that was really nothing new.  
When lunch came around, you along with the rest of the volleyball team met up outside so that you could all enjoy the sunny weather while eating your food.

You placed yourself between Kenma and Fukunaga, and stretched your arms above your head, sitting in an uncomfortable chair for hours never seized to make your body feel stiff and your mind restless.

As you were stretching you felt someone poke your ribs, looking behind you, you gave Kuroo a lazy smile before rummaging through you bag and moments later handing him his lunch.

This immediately drew in the attention of the team embers, mainly Lev, Inuoka, and Yamamoto.

 

“EEEEEEEEEEH?!?” all three of them chorused.

 

“Senpai, How come you made lunch for the captain and not me?” Lev whined

“I want (y/n)-senpai to make me food too!” Inuoka chimed in, nodding his head with a look of determination in his eyes, his fists clenched in front of him.

Yamamoto sent the captain a dark look, and in two seconds flat he was in front of you and had a firm grip on your shoulders, shaking you while throwing questions at the speed of sound.

“Did he blackmail you?”

“Threaten you?” 

“Is he keeping your family tied up in his closet and torture them if you don’t cook for him?” 

Feeling pretty dizzy you grabbed one of the hands from your shoulder and stopped him from shaking you any further.

“Uhmmm…no, no, and hopefully not! But boy do you have a lively imagination Yamamoto!” chuckling at his questions you briefly glanced at Kuroo who seemed just as amused with the wing spikers reaction.

“I just made a stupid deal with him and now I have to cook for him the next couple of days”

You sensed that Kuroo was about to say something stupid that would make Yamamoto misunderstand this even more, so you did what you had to and threw the chopsticks you had brought for him at him and hissed out a quiet “you better shut your mouth”

“…”

“…”

“Oh…” Yamamoto seemed to have calmed down a bit, but he was still shooting questioning glances at Kuroo and you.

You turned to Inuoka and Lev.

“And do I look like Yaku or something?” you mused, trying to stifle your laughter.

“Huh?” well that certainly got Yaku’s attention.

“Of course not senpai, why would you ask that?” Inuoka’s oblivious comment surely proved how slow they all were at catching on to your drift.

“Oh, you know~!” you teasingly said, not even trying to stop the laughter that was bubbling up. 

“(Y/n)…” Yaku grumbled.

“…Don’t!” He sent you a warning glare.

But before you could finish teasing him regardless of his deadly aura, a certain titan child decided to unknowingly take the blow for you.

“Oh, I get it now! It’s because Yaku-senpai is our mom right?!?” He smiled at you gleefully, definitely awaiting some kind of praise for being able to figure it out.

“Maybe~!” you answered with a small wink.

“I’M NOT YOUR MOM!” 

“Relax Yaku, we need all of our team members to be in one piece, ya know~?” you tried to ease to libero’s temper before he decided to beat the shit out of Lev.

The rest of the lunch period was filled with casual chatter, you and Fukunaga quietly chuckling at each other’s jokes, and what sounded like a yelling contest between two of your kohais. Lev and Inuoka have absolutely no volume control when they get too excited.

 

  
  


-Time skip-

  
  


 

The remaining part of the day had flown by; you managed to pay enough attention in your classes, while sneakily doing your homework before it had to be handed in, luckily not getting caught a single time.

Practice had ended way too soon in your opinion, and begrudgingly you didn’t get the chance to help Lev out because Yaku insisted that you took it easy or the rest of the day, since you according to him, had strained your body more than enough yesterday. 

The team seemed extremely eager about the match with Karasuno, and as soon as they had gotten the news it was as if something in them sparked to life and made them forget just how exhausted they were after practicing for the past couple of hours. 

But who could really blame them?  
This whole rival thing was kind of exciting to be honest.

Walking to the station minutes later with Kuroo and Kenma went as it always did some small talk here and there, the occasional teasing, discussing games with Kenma, and helping him out if needed. Or at least trying to help out the pudding prince.

And now here you were, finally home in your own apartment, the silence was nice but if you didn’t distract yourself soon you knew that you would end up taking a nap and that would really fuck up your sleeping schedule.

Removing your shoes you tossed your bag somewhere near the door and headed towards the small couch, turning on the TV, zapping through channel upon channel until you found something decent.

Letting your mind wander, there was one thing that kept lingering in the back of your mind.

“6 days until the practice match” you voiced the thought aloud.

“this is going to be so fucking awesome~!”


	10. New Friends and Freakouts - special chapter 2

You groaned, the sunlight seeping through the curtains disturbing you from your peaceful sleep. Lazily rubbing your eyes, you carefully turned on your back to stare emptily up at the ceiling.

“Ugh, screw you sun!” you mumbled.

You heard quick footsteps stomping towards the room that you were currently occupying, and seconds later the door slammed open.

“GOOOOOOD MORNING SUNSHINE~!”

“Noa, please…”

“THE SUN IS SHINING, THE BIRDS ARE SINGING AND IT’S TIME TO GET UP~!”

“Noa please, just shut up…”

“BREAKFAST IS DONE, SO GET YOUR LITTLE TUSH OUT OF BED BEFORE I CARRY YOU TO THE KITCHEN~!”

“Noa, if you don’t stop yelling I swear I’m going to beat the shit out of you…” you were starting to get really irritated by your ‘lovely’ brother.

“Pffft, what are you going to do? Beat me with your crutches?”

“Don’t fucking tempt me, bro!” 

you sighed and stretched out your arms in a sign that he had to help you with getting out of the bed.

This had been your daily routine ever since you had had surgery done on your back. Your mother had nagged at you until you agreed to live with Noa until you could start taking care of yourself again, and in many ways it was alright, you had company, someone to cook for you, and a doting brother who would most likely do anything for you while you were staying with him, all in one annoying package. If anything he may be a bit overprotective at times.

for example he tried to convince you to take showers with him in case you slipped and hurt yourself more, but you quickly shot that idea down, and told him that it was pretty freaking creepy that he even suggested such a thing. Eventually your brother settled on sitting outside of the bathroom door until you were done showering, for safety precautions of course. 

Grabbing your hands Noa heaved you out of bed with ease, and kept his grip on one of your hands, cheerily leading you to the kitchen table.

“I might be running a bit late today, since the captain wants to put in an extra hour or two of practice in, but if anything happens-“

you cut him off with a small yawn and a wave.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, I’ll call you and you’ll be here as soon as possible”

you seated yourself at the table and dug into the waffles that Noa had made for breakfast.

“You say the same thing every morning Noa, and I have yet to have called in the cripple card and ask for your help”

“I’m just saying, that there’s no shame in asking your older brother for help” he leisurely commented.

“You’re only older by a couple of minutes you prick”

“What was that?” He asked with a grin, obviously pretending that he hadn’t heard you.

“You heard me” you said, sending him a teasing smile

finishing breakfast you stabilized yourself using the table and moved towards the sink, wanting to clean your plate.

But before you could turn on the faucet your plate was snatched out of your hand and you were ushered to take a place on the couch.

“You do know that I’m not going to die if I clean my own plate, right?” you shot Noa a mild glare.

“Oh shush”

accepting your fate you reached for the remote and started zapping through the channels, not really finding anything worth watching.

Hearing the faucet turn off, you felt the space on the coach beside you dip down, signaling you that your brother had joined you.

“Mom called last night while you were sleeping”

you made a small noise to show him that he had your attention.

“she wanted to know how you were, and told me that she wish she could visit, but that she’s busy with work and the little ones”

“it’s alright, it’s not like I would magically be healed if she came by”

“still…”

“I know, I’ll give her a call later, okay?”

“Good” Noa gently ruffled your already messy bedhead and got off of the couch.

You could hear him shuffling around and minutes later he stood in front of you, bag slung across his shoulder and looking ready to head out.

“I’ll see you later okay? Don’t go anywhere before I get back! Not that I think you would be able to get very far but I know how stubborn you can be” he sighed and fixed his glasses before leaving the apartment and locking the door before heading off to school. 

“Don’t go anywhere before I get back” you mocked Noa in a whiny voice.

You turned off the TV and used the back of the couch to get on your feet, slowly limping towards your brothers´ bedroom that you were currently using as your own.

You headed to the nightstand where you stored the painkillers that your doctor had prescribed, and took a few before heading to the closet and, with great effort, changed your clothes.

another boring day was ahead of you, and the fact that Noa left every morning to spend the day at school and volleyball practice while you had to stay at his apartment, was like a big fat ‘fuck you’ to your face.

Thinking back on his words you decided that if you just came back before he was done with practice he would be none the wiser, and you could actually have a somewhat entertaining day.

“I never was one to listen to him anyway” you muttered as you hobbled over to your crutches.

 

\- Small Time Skip –

 

minutes later you had somehow achieved putting on your shoes by yourself, cheering yourself on for a bit for doing it for the first time in weeks without help, you grabbed the spar key that Noa had thankfully forgot to put away and checked your pockets for your wallet and phone before leaving the apartment, feeling ecstatic that you were finally going to get out of the apartment by yourself.

“Okay, so far so good!” you told yourself, slowly making your way down the street.

You almost toppled over at one point when a couple of kids barreled their way past you, but you managed with a small wobble, and a small grumble of ‘Fucking brats better watch their damn back if I ever see them again.’

With a little grunt, you adjusted your grip on the crutches and hoppled further away from your temporary prison.

Thinking back to Noa’s words you decided that since you had already ventured outside, you might as well push your luck even further and see how far you can get away from the apartment before you either give up and go back, get lost, or actually find something worth doing Hopefully the lather.

It was pretty sunny outside, and you were starting to wish that you could be at home with your boys, laughing and attending practice, you never thought that you would actually be even thinking this, but here you were, actually missing school. 

You heaved an exaggerated sigh, and turned a random corner on your way to god-knows-where.

 

“WHAM!”

Woah, woah, woah! Hold on a second, were your ears betraying you or was that the sweet, sweet sound of someone playing volleyball? Maybe you were just hallucinating because you had been thinking about the team and how much you actually missed being with them, but your mind hopefully wouldn’t be that cruel towards you.

Following the supposed sound, you turned corner after corner and soon enough ended up in a park.

In the distance you could just make out a volleyball court being used by some kids, probably not much older than 10, happily indulging themselves in a match to the best of their abilities.

You could hear their yelling and laughter a lot clearer the closer you got, and you decided that it might not be so bad to find a bench to rest on while you watched the kiddos have some fun, it wouldn’t be the same as watching the Nekoma team play, but hey, it’s something right? 

“Not to jinx myself or anything, but damn just look at my luck today!” you muttered to yourself.

as if the volleygods decided to shine upon you, there was a bench positioned just a few meters from the court, most likely so parents could watch their kids, but for now this bench was all yours.

You sat down, and stretched your aching legs, being inactive for this long sure were taking its toll on your body, and in retrospect walking for this long probably hadn’t been the best plan, but you were here now and you were determined to enjoy yourself for the first time in a while. 

You tuned everything out while your eyes drifted from the kids playing and onto the clear sky.

To think that you could’ve been missing out on weather this great, thank god that you never really listen to your brother.

Smiling to yourself you imagined how furious Noa would be if he knew you had snuck out while he was at school, continuing that line of thought you didn’t hear the yells directed at you and only snapped out of your thoughts when the volleyball came flying and hit you directly in the face. 

The ball dropped to the floor and it was comically silent for a few seconds.

“…”

“Uhmmm…ouch?” 

The kids just looked at you with curious expressions, most of them kind of weirded out by your reaction.

Just as the silence was getting awkward a kid with a buzz cut stepped closer to you, stepping away from the rest of the group.

“You’re kinda weird” that was obviously a statement.

“Eh? How so?” you inquired, rubbing lightly at your forehead.

“You just got smacked in the head with a volleyball and you sound like you’re not sure if it really hurt or not…”

“Oh that? Well you see kiddo, I’m kind of used to it by now, and to be honest the ball didn’t really have that much speed”

“HEY!” another one of the kids stepped out from the group, obviously angry, pointing a finger at you.  
You turned your attention to him.

“MY SERVE WENT SUPER FAST SO DON’T TELL STUPID LIES LIKE THAT!!!!!”

Wow, you really managed to piss this kid off, better think of some way to appease him, and fast!  
The rest of the group was staring at you obviously waiting for your response.

“Woah there kid, I didn’t mean it like that…” you started with a nervous grin, trying to wave off his accusations.

“You see, I only said that because…”

a lightbulb went off in your head.

“…Because I’m used to getting volleyballs served to my face by high schoolers!”  
yeah that would just have to do, there’s no time to come up with another reason

You flashed him a radiating smile and soon enough he seemed to accept your explanation and took on a look of realization instead of anger, nodding his head in understanding.

The kid with the buzz cut stared at you, and as soon as you felt his stare you gave him your full attention.

“Yes?” you questioned.

“That’s not something you should be proud of, it’s lame!”

You momentarily chocked on your own spit while processing that the kiddo had just insulted you, that little shit! This kid wouldn’t know cool even if it punched him right in the throat!

“Oi, respect your elders kiddo!” You huffed at him.

“Is that why you’re already using crutches?” he asked bluntly, pointing at your forgotten crutches resting beside you on the bench.

“What’s your name kid?” you were prepared to beat the shit out of the boy at this point but technically he was just a kid, and truthfully you had been just as blunt at his age so there was really no harm in it you guessed. And smacking around a kid didn’t seem like something fun enough to get in trouble for.

“Takeru”

“Nice to meet you Takeru, I’m (y/n)”

after getting introduced to the rest of the small group, you talked for a bit more and even explained why you were using crutches, the kids seemed to have taking a liking to you since you all had the common ground of loving volleyball.

Soon enough you encouraged them to keep playing their little match, and out of pure habit you gave them hints and pointers on how to improve their play, for kids their age they actually weren’t too bad.

 

\- Small Time Skip -

 

“Don’t mind! Don’t mind!”

“Just keep the ball going!”

“Nice save”

“Yuki, you need to straighten out your fingers a bit more when you block like that!”

The kids had been playing for about half an hour now, and with your instructions they were slowly correcting their small flaws. You were carefully about not being too straightforward with them though, at this stage all they really need to improve is small pointers and praise.

Minutes later the game was finished, and all of the children were pretty exhausted.

“Yo kiddos, could any of you point me in the direction of the closest convenience store? I’ll buy us something refreshing!”

After following the half-assed directions you had been given, you hoppled into the store and went directly to the freezer where you found enough ice-cream to feed the kids. that oddly enough had wormed their little volleyball-playing-selves into your heart.

Carrying all of the ice-cream while trying to move with your crutches was pretty much as close to impossible as it gets, and you would be lying if you said that people didn’t give you either amused or pitying glances. 

Hoppling to the counter and paying for the ice-cream you almost cried out of relief when everything was soon after bagged and now way easier for you to carry.

“Thank god” 

you reached for the bag but before you could grab ahold of it, it was taken by another person.

“…what?” you muttered, clearly confused.

You stared at your bag; slowly gazing from the bag, to the hand that was holding it, letting your eyes wander until you focused in on his face.

Brown eyes, dark hair that was spiked up, and a serious expression

 

“Sorry but you looked like you needed some help” he nodded his head at your crutches for emphasis while his expression softened a bit.

“It’s really nice of you, but I’m pretty sure I can handle this by myself!” you tried to be as polite as possible, it was a nice offer but you wouldn’t want to bother the stranger with something like this. You also didn’t like feeling hindered by such a thing as having t use crutches.

“You sure?” he raised an eyebrow at you, obviously not believing you.

“I’m only going to the park so it’s not too far away after all, so I think I can manage” You said trying to convince him.

“If you say so” he handed you the bag with a small sigh, and waited for you to adjust the bag so that you could move the crutches without any trouble.

“Thanks” you muttered, getting a firm grip on the crutches.

“You’re welcome”

you walked out of the convenience store and it seemed like the stranger were set on seeing that you safely reached your destination.

“Sooooo~ can I get the name of the helpful stranger who’s following me at the moment?”

“Iwaizumi Hajime”

“well, I guess it’s nice to meet you Iwaizumi-san, I’m (y/l/n) (y/n)”

“Likewise, I kind of saw you struggling earlier and thought that I might as well help you out”

“I can’t really say that it was one of my proudest moments but I’m pretty stoked that I managed to lug all of the ice-cream to the cashier without either toppling over, or dropping some!”

Iwaizumi chuckled at that.

“I’ll have to admit that it was pretty impressive” 

Iwaizumi ended up following you back to the park no matter how much you protested that he shouldn’t bother with it.

Once you were almost at the court, you noticed that the kids were surrounding a pretty tall, chocolate haired male, he was seemingly bragging about something to the younger kids, and he obviously had their full attention. Except for Takeru who looked more than done with the older males’ antics

you could practically feel the angry aura surrounding Iwaizumi, and gave him a worried glance, trying to keep on walking while looking at his face for any clues as to why his mood had changed.

“Hey Iwaizu-“ you were about to ask if Iwaizumi was okay, until you heard a loud and annoying cry burst from the chocolate-haired male.

“YAAAHOOO, IWA-CHAAAAAAAAN~!” 

“SHUT UP ASSIKAWA!” was his immediate reply.

You looked between to the males and concluded that they must know each other; you were also a bit surprised how fast Iwaizumi went from 0-100 as soon as the stranger gained his attention.

“You’re so mean Iwa-chan” to unknown male pouted.

For a second it seemed as if Iwaizumi would rip this guy another one, so you decided that you could at least try to save your new friend from going to jail for murder or something along those lines.

 

you did your best maintaining your balance while you switched one of the crutches to the other hand the one already holding the other crutch and the bag of ice-cream, and albeit a bit wobbly, placed your now free hand on Iwaizumi’s shoulder in a calming gesture.

He stiffened at your touch and sent you a glare; you simply shook your head at him, trying to tell him that it wasn’t worth it.

Iwaizumi looked from you and to this so-called assikawa and soon nodded begrudgingly at you while taking deep breaths.

As soon as the kids noticed you there they ran towards you trying to get as close to you as possible without making you fall over or annoy you, you had promised them something refreshing after all.

“(y/n)-san, what did you get us?” 

“Yeah!”

“What’s in the bag?!?”

“Come on show us! Show us!”

“Woah, calm down kiddos! Let me get to the bench first since I’m not of much use while I have to use my cripple-sticks!” you grinned at them, to be honest their energy was contagious, and if you hadn’t been confined to your crutches you would have been bouncing all over the place with them.

When you were seated you ruffled a couple of their heads, and opened up the bag for them to peek into, squeals of delight were heard from most of the kids and they happily picked out one of the frozen treats.

As soon as the kids had chosen their ice-cream, they started running around playing tag with each other  
have you ever tried to play volleyball while eating ice-cream? You can’t! You need both hands and the ball would probably get super sticky and shit! You un-wrapped an ice-cream for yourself and dug in, closing your eyes for a moment, you had had an eventful day so far and you were starting to feel pretty tired to be honest.

You had totally forgotten that Iwaizumi and the stranger was still around, that is until you opened up your eyes and were met with the face of ‘assikawa’, inches from your own.

“Never heard of personal space I figure?” You said a bit teasingly, you didn’t really mind the close contact but it was pretty unusual of a random stranger to get this far into your personal bubble since most would consider it rude.

“Sooo~ who are you and how do you know Takeru and Iwa-chan~?”

“Well, my name is (y/l/n) (Y/n), though I would prefer if you just called me by my first name…”  
You placed a finger on your chin and gently tapped it in a thinking motion.

“And uhmmm…I met Takeru when him and his friends served their volleyball into my face, after that we talked for a bit and I ended up giving them some pointers to improve their gameplay, then I went to get some refreshments for the kiddos since they worked so hard”

he nodded and waited for you to continue.

“…and that’s when Iwaizumi-san came to the rescue and tried to help carry the ice-cream, although I refused and in the end he ended up walking me back to the park!”

“Satisfied with my explanation?” you added.

The brunette was obviously about to say something, but was interrupted by Iwaizumi hitting him pretty hard on the back of his head, almost making him face plant the ground.

“Shittykawa stop interrogating them!” Iwaizumi grumbled.

“Don’t worry about it Iwaizumi-san, he was probably just worried that I was going to take you and Takeru away from him~!” you teased, sending Iwaizumi a wink that made him blush slightly, and it only intensified when he caught the full meaning of your words.

“WE’RE NOT LIKE THAT!”

“Of course you aren’t~!” Damn, it felt nice being able to tease someone besides Noa.

Oikawa having quickly recovered caught on to your teasing and decided to play along, placing his arm around Iwaizumis’ shoulder and resting it there.

“Oh my~! Iwa-chan you don’t have to be so shy, you know~?” this promptly earned him a second hit, this one actually making him fall to the ground.

“Take it easy Iwaizumi, it was just some friendly teasing, I wouldn’t want your friend to actually die~!” you chuckled, finding their friendship entertaining.

Iwaizumi huffed and turned away from you.

“And you…” you started out, catching the attention of the guy that was brushing himself off from when his body had hugged the ground.

“Could I get your name or should I just call you Shittykawa like Iwaizumi-san does?” you questioned with an amused smile 

“IWA-CHAAAAAN~! Look what you’ve done! Now they think that my name is Shittykawa~!” he whined, obviously not very pleased with the turn of events

“Shut your mouth Trashykawa!” came his gruff reply

“MY NAME IS OIKAWA~! Say it after me Iwa-chan! O-I-K-A-W-A~!”

Feeling the murderous intent radiating from Iwaizumi you did your best to defuse the oncoming disaster.

“Okay, Oikawa it is then” 

That luckily gained their attention, triumphantly you shoved your crutches off the bench and offered both of them a seat and one of the ice-creams that you had left.

“Sooo~ (y/n)-chan you said that you were giving my cute little nephew and the others pointers earlier, right? So you play volleyball?” Oikawa questioned, keeping his eyes locked on Takeru, whom you now assumed where his nephew.

You hummed in reply before adding actual words to your answer.

“Yeah, a good friend of mine kind of dragged me into the world of volleyball a couple of years ago, I really enjoy playing, but I would rather use my time and energy on helping the rest of the team improve, hopefully bringing out the best in each and every one of them…”

you exhaled quietly while thinking about your team back at home, turning to face Oikawa’s intrigued stare you continued. 

“So that’s why I ended up being the manager…I pretty much play and train with the guys as if I was a team member most of the time though and that makes me truly happy, experiencing their improvements firsthand is absolutely amazing! and I’ll gladly leave playing the real matches to my boys, I know they have a chance to win if they just keep moving, if they can just keep the ball in the air, if they have their heads and their hearts in the game, and do their best each and every second, that’s all it takes to turn a match around…”

you felt oddly at ease around these two, it certainly didn’t feel like you had just met a couple of minutes ago, still you couldn’t quite believe that you had just told these two people that were basically strangers to you, some of your innermost thoughts, not even fully realizing it until just now. You should blame the painkillers you took earlier.

“…”

“…”

“…”

You looked at them and they just stared back without a word, taking this as a bad sign you started running your mouth.

 

“Oh shit! That was waaay too much information wasn’t it? Fuck I’m sorry if it sounded stupid or something! It’s just you guys are pretty easy to talk to, and I haven’t talked to people in a long ass while, besides my brother that is and-“you quickly rambled out.

You stopped the train wreck of an apology you were working on when you heard chuckles coming from the boys; staring at them feeling utterly confused.

“Eh?” did you miss something, because as far as you knew you hadn’t said anything remotely funny in your opinion.

 

“Awwwww (y/n)-chan you’re so adorable~!” Oikawa cooed pinching your cheeks.

Iwaizumi took charge and slapped Oikawa’s hands from your cheeks, glaring at him for good measure, before clearing his throat

“What CrappyKawa here is trying to say is that, we’re glad that you think we’re easy to talk to”

Oikawa rubbed his hand, whining a bit, but nodded in agreement.

“And also, what you just said about your team was pretty inspiring; it also made it clear how much you care for your team and I’m sure they care just as much about you!” he sent you a warm smile, and a similar one grew one your face seconds later.

“Thanks guys, it means a lot to hear you say that”

“No problem (y/n)-chan~!”

The three of you continued talking while leisurely keeping an eye on the kids that had by now gone back to playing volleyball.

 

\- Time Skip -

you hadn’t really payed too much attention to how late it was getting, which soon proved to be a fateful decision.

You were still holding casual conversations with the two boys and had learned that they actually played volleyball themselves, both attending one of the powerhouse high schools here in the Miyagi Prefecture; you even swapped numbers so that you could keep in contact with them from now on. Oikawa being the one who had practically forced you to hand over your phone.  
The sun was slowly setting which should’ve been the first warning sign, but time flies when you’re having fun and everything else had clearly slipped your mind…

until…  
your phone started ringing, you un-pocketed it and read the screen, and as soon as you did, pure terror showed on your face.

 

[Incoming Call From: TsunTsun Trash]

“Oh, fuck me running!” you grumbled, nervously running a hand through your hair.

Both boys looked at you worriedly, both contemplating who was calling you to make you react like that? 

“Eh~? What’s wrong (y/n)-chan~?”

You exhaled deeply, and held up a finger to signal him to be quiet for a moment, answering the phone you held it a fair distance away from your ear. Safety measures

“WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?!? I TOLD YOU NOT TO GO AHYWHERE WITHOUT ME!!! ARE YOU TRYING TO GIVE ME A HEART ATTACK OR SOMETHING?”

“…”

“I COME HOME FROM PRACTICE TO AN EMPTY APPARTMENT! NO YOU! NO CRUTCHES! NO EXTRA KEY! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU THINKING?!?” 

“Bro…”

“NO YOU SHUT YOUR FACE! YOU ARE SO FUCKING DEAD WHEN YOU COME HOME!”

“Bro...”

“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU! MOM WOULD KILL ME IF SHE KNEW!”

“Bro can I ju-“

“NO YOU DON’T GET TO SAY SHIT!”

“Oh no Noa~!” you said in a dramatic voice

“WHAT?” Oh boy, your brother sounded as if he was ready to blow a fuse or two in mere seconds

“It’s too dark outside I can’t hear you!” you said pretending to not have heard a word.

Iwaizumi and Oikawa looked at you as if you were crazy, and you simply put a finger to your lips while a smirk slowly worked its way onto your face.

You heard some shuffling in the background.  
“Can you hear me now? I’m standing next to the lamp now?”

“It’s still really difficult to hear you Noa!” soon enough Oikawa was wheezing for his breath and even Iwaizumi had a hard time holding in his chuckles, since they could clearly hear your brother on the other end of the phone.

More shuffling.

“Okay, I gathered all the lamps now, and it’s bright as hell in here! Can you hear me now?”

“It’s better but you’re still breaking up bro…” you chuckled as quietly as possible but it seems as if Noa had heard it any way.

“Wait a minute…”

“…” you gave him a couple of seconds to let it sink in. 

“YOU FUCKE-“and that’s when you hung up on him, you would surely get to feel his rage when you came home, but you simply couldn’t help yourself.

As soon as you hung up the three of you were roaring with laughter.

Slowly regaining your breath, you decided that regardless of anything you really ought to head home now, for hell truly hath no fury like your brother when he’s worried.

“Well, Oikawa, Iwaizumi it was nice hanging out with you, hopefully we can meet up or something while I’m still in the area, but I kind of have to get home and probably get my ass handed to me by my doting brother~!” you said scratching your cheek gently.

“It’s okay (y/n)-chan, I’ll be sure to text you every day~!” Oikawa offered with a wink, his tongue sticking out and cheerily flashing you the victory sign.

“Thanks, Oikawa! By the way have anyone ever told you that you look silly when you do that?” you questioned genially curious as to what was up with that shit.

“Eh~? Do not!” he turned to Iwaizumi with a childish pout.

“Iwa-chan you should stay away from (y/n)-chan, your meanness is obviously rubbing off on them~!

“Then maybe you should stay away from them so your stupidity doesn’t rub off on them idiot!” He retaliated, while rubbing his fist aggressively on top of Oikawa’s head.

“As much as I enjoy watching you two fight it out, I really have to go now! Both of you better keep in contact or else I’ll come to your school and find you~!”

“Shouldn’t you be hurrying home (y/n)?” Iwaizumi commented after your little ‘threat’

“OH SHIT! You’re right! BYE BYE~!” 

you grabbed your crutches and called out to the kids that hadn’t left for home yet, and complimented them on how well they had done today, wishing them luck in the future and soon after you were hoppling your way down through the streets in what was hopefully the correct way to your brothers apartment, you never were the best person with directions after all.

All you could think of while you neared your almost certain demise, was how glad you were that you had ignored Noa’s rules and left, otherwise you wouldn’t have meet these two very interesting new friends of yours.

Just for that sole reason, you were sure that you could deal with your brothers’ punishment.

“…”

 

At least that’s what you tried to tell yourself.


	11. NEKOMA FIGHT!!!

“No”

 

“Let me ju-“

 

“I said no”

 

“okay, but what do-“

 

“no”

 

“…” 

 

“…”

 

“Okay, okay I get it!” you gazed into the darkness of your room, contemplating if you should have called Kuroo instead. Or Kenma, since he was most likely still awake.

 

“But…” you started up the conversation once more.

“No buts…”

“Aki, You’re totally hurting my feelings and shit” 

 

“I’m okay with that” sounded Akinori’s very tired voice from the other end of the line

 

“Urgh, why won’t you just let me finish my stupid questions?” You groaned loudly, raising the hand that wasn’t holding your phone in the air with exasperation.

 

“Because, just as you said, they’re probably stupid”

 

“I hate you so much right now” you mumbled.  
Of course you didn’t really hate him, but this was really important to you at the moment, and since he didn’t want to listen you were going to be a grumpy little shit about it.

 

“I can live with that (y/n), now stop your complaining and go to bed! Doesn’t your team start your training camp or something tomorrow?” 

 

“Yeah but I can’t sleep” you grumbled.

 

“That’s not really my problem, now is it?” Akinori yawned loudly into his phone, and you actually felt a bit bad for waking him up at 2 in the morning, but then again who else were you going to call at this time of night? 

 

“Well no, bu-“

 

“No, go to bed!” 

And without further ado he had hung up on you, leaving you once more to stare upon your ceiling in boredom. 

 

“Rude…”

 

you laid still on your bed for a couple of minutes deciding if you should take the chance and call your emergency ‘can’t-fall-asleep-and-need-someone-to-keep-me-company-while-my-brain-is-contemplating-weird-stuff-buddy’ you knew that he wouldn’t be mad at you, but a dear friend of his and yours would surely give him hell tomorrow if he stayed up later than usual.

“Well, I guess it can’t be helped” you muttered to yourself and lifted the phone to your face.

Finding his contact you pressed call before you could talk yourself out of it, and listened to the dial-tone anxiously waiting for him to pick up.

“Come on, come on! Don’t leave me hanging!”

“…”

“Hello?” you could hear the low noise of his TV in the background, which luckily meant that you hadn’t woken the boy from his much needed beauty sleep.

“Holy hell am I glad you picked up, nobody wants to talk to me and I can’t fall asleep!”

 

“(Y/n)-chan~?”

 

“The one and only!”

“I-”

You heard him start his sentence but quickly cut him off before he could come with any teasing comments.

 

“…Yeah, yeah, yeah before you get to say anything, just riddle me this, okay?”

 

You heard a hum from the other end and took this as a go-ahead for the questions about to be asked.

 

“Okay, this might sound pretty dumb but I was thinking and stuff, right?”

 

“And~?”

 

You exhaled deeply, and continued.

“…Do jellyfish get gas from eating jellybeans?”

 

“What?” 

 

“…and what if a bunch of cats jump on top of each other? Is it still called a dog pile?

 

“(y/n)-chan…” you heard him sigh.

“…If a kid refuses to sleep during nap time, are they guilty of resisting a rest?” 

 

“uhmmm, I guess~?” came his unsure answer

 

“Tooru, shush! I wasn’t done yet! I saved the most important one for last!” you whined, a bit miffed that he had interrupted you.

 

“Sorry (y/n)-chan~!” he replied chuckling.

 

“How the frickle frackle do you handcuff a one-armed man?”

 

“Uhmmm…” after a brief silence you heard him pause or mute whatever was playing in the background before shuffling around for a while, most likely getting comfortable for what would be a very long late night talk.

 

╰☆╮

 

“Damn, I knew I should have gotten more than 2 hours of sleep” you mumbled whilst yawning, leading to the sentence being almost unintelligible for others. Except for Yaku, team mom sees and hears everything.

Talking with Trashy Tooru had been fun and all, but maybe, just maybe you should have tried harder to go to sleep, after all it’s not every day that you get to go on a training camp with your team, and later on challenge you rivals head on. 

 

“I told you to go to bed early (y/n)” 

 

“I told you to go to bed early (y/n)” you mimicked the motherly libero, acting out the mouth movements with your hand. Wearing a cheeky grin, obviously trying to get a reaction out of the motherly libero. Lev wasn’t coming along so someone had to take on the role of Team mom tormentor.

 

He sent you a venomous glare, but you ignored it, you were overtired as fuck, and the mere thought that you would get to spend the next couple of days with your team kept you more energized than a hamster on caffeine. Unfortunately it also removed your mind to mouth filter.

 

“Yaku, Yaku, Yaku if my memory serves me right I didn’t ask for a reminder on how bad I am at controlling my own life, I am fully aware how good I am at messing shit up~!” you shook your head in fake disapproval, basically asking to be smacked the fuck up because you wouldn’t shut the fuck up. In Yaku’s opinion at least.

 

“…”

 

“…also, How can you be this grumpy? We’re going to be away from Tokyo for a week! Isn’t that freaking awesome?” you retorted skipping in front of him, walking backwards while giving him a dorky smile and two thumbs up, 

 

“what are you, 12?” Yaku sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, really not feeling up to your antics this early, after all you still had a train to catch and the team would later on be playing against some high school by the name of Tsukinokiawa, so long story short, he had more important things to worry about than you and your childish behavior

 

“YEAH, on a scale from 1 to 10!” you yelled a bit too loud. Making passerby’s give you odd looks.  
Nudging Kuroo in the side with your elbow, since he was walking next to you, along with Kenma,  
you easily earned yourself a low chuckle and a ruffle of your hair, curtesy of your captain.

Yaku merely groaned in exasperation, and quickly walked ahead of you so that he could end the conversation without smacking the sass out of you. 

“AW COME ON! THAT WAS FUNNY YAKU!!!!” you yelled after the annoyed male. Well at least you thought that you were funny, and you guessed that that was really what mattered in the end. 

Grabbing a firmer hold of your sports bag filled with miscellaneous items, you slowed down so that you were walking next to a certain loudmouth wing spiker, breathing in the chilly morning air you swung your arms around his shoulders and started chatting away happily with him, absolutely nothing could ruin your mood this week, nothing at all.

 

╰☆╮

 

“WE LOST KENMA?!?” you shrieked, your soul dramatically threatening to leave your body.

 

“That’s what I just said kitten” Kuroo shook his head, seemingly not as concerned as you were for the missing setter, at least that’s what he tried to make you believe, but you knew better. 

 

“It’s only been one day at this MOTHERFUCKING training camp and we FUCKING LOST HIM?!?” you pulled at your hair; oh this was bad, REALLY bad. Team mom would not be pleased.

Kuroo grabbed ahold of your shoulders, gently trying to make eye contact with you, so that he could try and calm you down.

“(Y/n) look at me, okay?”

You gave a pouty and teary eyed nod and met his gaze.

“Kenma will be fine until we find him okay? I’ll even bet that he’ll text one of us as soon as he realizes that he’s lost!”

Okay maybe you had overreacted a bit, but you usually kept a good eye on Kenma when you walked around, and of course the one time that you didn’t, he ended up being separated from you and Kuroo.  
Tch, just your luck.

But you trusted that your captain knew his childhood friend well enough to go with this plan of action.

 

“Okay, okay, I get it, I just had a slight moment of panic, alright?” blowing a strand of hair from your face you leaned onto his chest and rested your head there for a second or two, feeling a lot calmer afterwards

 

“But, I still think we should keep walking around the area and see if we can spot him!”

 

“If it makes you feel better kitten~!” 

Pushing yourself away from Kuroo with a small ‘Tch’ and a chuckle, the two of you turned around and started walking down streets and alleys in the search of the lost setter. 

 

╰☆╮

 

“Eh? Really? That’s nice Kenma, who knew you had it in you just go and make friends! I’m so proud of you~!” you cheered him on, after all Kenma wasn’t too big on social situations so the fact that he had made a friend in the period he had been lost was pretty impressive.

Unfortunately you didn’t get to meet this so-called friend since you had left Kuroo for 15 minutes to find a bathroom, and of course your captain had found his friend in that time period.

Fortunately you had heard enough about the first year known as Hinata Shouyou from your brother, so you had no doubt that he was a worthy friend for Kenma. Overprotective much?

 

“You’re proud of him too, right captain?” you focused in on Kuroo who was lazing around on the futon that he had claimed as his the day before

 

“Mmmh” well that was probably all the response you would get out of him right now. 

 

the team members had already changed for the night and were pretty exhausted to put it mildly, not only had they trained most of the day away but they had also had a practice match which Nekoma had won.

That would probably teach the other team not to judge Kenma or the rest of your team.

 

you crawled your way to your futon and laid down, you might not have done much more than cheering your team on and bringing towels and nicely chilled water, but damn you were feeling tired nonetheless.

 

Closing your eyes with a sigh you could still pick up the sound of Kenma tapping away on his phone, Shibayama, Yamamoto, and Inuoka’s chatting, and the occasional rustling of either clothes or the futons.

 

Well wasn’t this just peacef-

“BASTARDS! IT’D BE FRUSTRATING AS ALL HELL!”

 

Looks like you spoke to soon.

 

whatever Yamamoto was yelling about sure had got him fired up, even leading him to scream out of the window, all you could gather was that it had something to do with Karasuno.

 

“Shut up, Yamamoto!” growled Kuroo.

 

You zoned out for a bit, trying to sleep with the annoying voice of Yamamoto at full volume, at least until you heard Kenma say something totally unsuspecting.

“…But, I’m kinda looking forward to the match with Karasuno”

 

you snickered quietly to yourself, lazily rubbing your eyes for a couple of seconds; it looks like the little ball of sunshine from Karasuno had made a bigger impression on Kenma than you first thought.

 

“KENMA, WHO NEVER FEELS LIKE DOING ANYTHING, SAYS HE’S LOOKING FORWARD TO A MATCH?!?” Geez Yamamoto really had no volume control what-so-ever.

 

“Yamamoto if you’ve got that much energy, how about I make you practice more than everyone else?” Looks like Kuroo was as done with the wing spiker’s loud voice, as you and probably the rest of the team was.

“s-sorry” this hopefully meant that you could go to sleep without fearing being woken up immediately. 

 

╰☆╮

 

It had been two days since the match against Tsukinokiawa and today would be the day Nekoma went head to head with Karasuno.

 

“Oh god, oh god, oh god! It’s finally happening! Cats versus crows!!!” You seemed abnormally happy from the outside, but internally you were freaking out, various emotions flowing through your body at the speed of sound. Gotta go fast.

First and foremost you were going to see people you actually knew; hopefully they would be just as thrilled to see you again, as you would be to see them, happiness.

Second of all, if being rivals with a team wasn’t cool enough, then playing against them would surely take the price, and you really couldn’t wait to see how good Karasuno were, excitement.

Last but not least, playing the match in the first place, yeah of course you know that your team is strong, but the fact that you really didn’t know shit about Karasuno’s playing style threw you off a bit, and made you…well, nervous.

 

“Well, guys, I’m going to get a head start and find Noa before the match starts, be nice to them, and shit if you find them before me” you had mainly aimed that last comment at Yamamoto. For quite obvious reasons.

 

“Just don’t do anything stupid (y/l/n)” how nice to know that the coaches trusted you about as far as you could throw Kuroo. 

 

“I can’t promise anything! See ya!” and with that you were running across the grounds looking for the dark haired megane.

 

“Nooooooooooooooaaaaaa!” how you had the energy to run around while screaming for your brother without even the smallest sign of exhaustion, will probably remain a mystery. 

 

You halted your screaming as soon as you spotted a group of teenagers wearing all black, oh you sure as hell recognized that uniform.

Taking a running start, you sprinted at the group, and in the last second you leapt at your brother and wrapped your arms around his neck, not in a hug no, you had him secured in a headlock and was grinning victoriously.

 

“Got ya!” forcefully rubbing your knuckles on Noa’s head.

At this point the rest of the Karasuno team was either watching in confusion/ horror because of what just happened while simultaneously wondering who the fuck you were, or smiling/grinning since they had a feeling that something like this would happen.

“Stoooooooooooop, it huuuuuuuurts~!” 

 

“It’s supposed to!” you gave him a last couple of rubs and released him letting him fix the birds nest that was his hair at the moment, just to seconds later be knocked over be a crying second year duo.

 

“(Y/N)-SAAAAAAN” 

 

“TANAKA, NOYA!” You laughed loudly, thoroughly enjoying the hug even though the ground wasn’t treating your back too kindly. 

 

“Okay, okay, enough sappy reunions, this big brother need a proper hug from his twin!” Noa had fixed himself up and pushed the second years to the side, grabbing your outstretched hand, he pulled you into a tight hug.

 

“You’re so mean…” you could clearly hear the pout in his voice, but you knew him well enough to tell that he was only pretending, besides it was all in good humor.

 

“You still love me though” you answered, patting him on the back and pulling away from the hug.

 

You directed your attention to the rest of the team, leisurely walking closer to them with a happy smile.  
“Sup?” well, that’s one way to introduce yourself to the people that you hadn’t met yet.

“I guess I should introduce myself to the people I haven’t met yet, eh? My name is (Y/l/n) (Y/n), begrudgingly the younger twin of the idiot standing over there” you pointed at your brother, a small smirk growing on your lips.

 

“RUDE!!!”  
you heard some snickers, which made you look in the direction of the sound, only to look at a tall blonde megane and his freckled friend.

 

“Oooooooh, I know who you guys are!” you exclaimed, playing the kohai game with your brother wasn’t for naught after all.

Noa gave you a fearful glance. Begging you not to reveal too much of the shit he had done or said involving freckles and megane titan. Mainly Tsukki

 

“Tch, it wouldn’t be fun to get you into trouble when it’s this easy bro” you whispered in his direction, making him sigh in relief.

 

You cleared you throat before addressing the teens again.  
“You’re Tsukishima, and Yamaguchi right?” 

Yamaguchi answered with a flustered nod of his head, and a small nervous ‘yes’ while Tsukishima glanced at you, seemingly uninterested before giving his own answer.

“Eh? What’s it to you munchkin?”

 

You glared at his response momentarily before breaking into laughter, if he didn’t think you were confusing before, he sure as hell must’ve thought that you were by now.

“You really need some better insult ya know? You could’ve called me anything, and munchkin is what you came up with? Pffft, what an amateur!”

Tsukishima was slightly surprised and annoyed that you didn’t react to the insult like your brother would have but he didn’t get any time to retort since you had already moved on and was greeting the rest of the second and the three third years enthusiastically.

As soon as that was over and done with, you whipped your head around in search for your setter’s new friend; to be honest it wasn’t that hard. Though he may be short his orange mop of hair sure made him stand out.

 

“Ahhh, Hinata was it?” you bend your knees a bit, leaning forward slightly as if to analyze the kid that had befriended your anti-social team member. 

 

“Y-yes!!!” wow, this kid looked like he was ready to puke out his guts any minute now, hopefully he wouldn’t

 

“Hey now, no need to be so nervous, I just wanted to greet you properly since I’ve heard quite a few things about you!” you tried your best to ensure that you didn’t come off as intimidating, and in hindsight you probably should have been gentler with your brother so that you wouldn’t scare the first year.

You ruffled his hair and moved onto the angry looking male beside him.

 

“Sorry but I’m not sure who you are” you smiled apologetically to the setter.

this sent Tsukishima and Yamaguchi into a fit of snickers once more, and Hinata was exclaiming that it was okay that the setter obviously was jealous that you had known his, Hinata’s, name and not the king’s.

“S-SHUT UP IDIOT!” que sunshine crow hiding behind you, trying to play it off like he wasn’t the slightest bit afraid of the young setter.

You coughed loudly and cleared your throat to try and avoid any fights from breaking out between the two of them, you had a pretty good intuition about stuff like this, and if anyone was going to fight outside of the court today it would be Noa and you, not the grump, and the ball of literal sunshine.

Sugawara sent you a thankful smile which you returned with a nod.

 

Looking back at the teen you waited patiently for his introduction.

“K-KAGEYAMA TOBIO” holy fuck he really knew how to yell, play it cool (Y/n), he’s probably just a bit socially awkward or something.

Reusing to cringe at the loudness of his voice you simply smiled and nodded at his answer. Not paying attention to the fact that a certain blonde megane was now mocking the setter for his lack of social delicacy.

 

“Eh-hmm” you heard someone clear their throat, looking up you spotted who you presumed was their…coach?

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Not to be rude or anything, but what exactly are you doing here?” he had some pretty weird hair, and was that lavender you smelled? Manga Readers will know and so will the rest if you look at the bottom*

 

As you were about to answer your brother cut in.

 

“Coach, they’re the manager for Nekoma, didn’t I tell you this earlier?” he sounded genuinely confused, as if he was certain he had mentioned something along those lines.

The team members that didn’t know this just stared at you with various expressions, the most disturbing definitely being the intense gaze of a certain raven haired setter.

 

You nudged Noa in the ribs, and non-verbally signaled him and the team to follow you.

“Now that that’s out of the way, my team is kinda waiting for you guys” you mentioned, puffing out your chest a bit, your arms crossed.

After a short walk the two teams were standing mere meters away from each other.

 

“LINE UP!!!” Daichi’s voice rang out to his team members loud and clear.

The two rival teams shuffled in front of each other, and straightened up, gazing at each other respectfully.

“Greet your opponents!”

 

“LET’S HAVE A GOOD GAME!”

“HAVE A GOOD GAME!”

And with that the ‘battle at the trash dump’ can begin.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

*Ukai sprayed his coach jacket with frebreze so that he wouldn’t smell like tobacco, and then complains that he should have used an unscented one instead of lavender when he asked for Takeda’s opinion and got an answer of ‘don’t worry, you smell like lavender’.


	12. Claws Out!

You were animatedly talking with Noa, slowly walking behind the rest of your respective teams.

“…and then he started crying, I felt really bad though” sighing you rubbed your neck, sometimes you really were to oblivious for your own good.

Noa grabbed your hands and held them in front of his face, looking more determined than ever.

“I’ll kick his ass for you!” 

“Uhmmm, alright but listen to this bro…” you pulled your hands out of his grasp and waited for some sort of conformation that he was ready to hear your reply.

In response Noa nodded his head rapidly.

“Maybe, you could, well I don’t know, not do that?” 

“I could do that, but I could also crank it up a notch and make it look like an accident?” 

“Yeeeeeeeaaaaah, no” you responded flatly.

“BUT-“

“If you keep up this creepy shit I’ll kick YOUR ass bro”

Noa snorted and was most likely about to bust out a rant on why you should just let him do it, but your little conversation was quickly cut short as you got closer to two VERY loud voices

“The hell was that?”

 

“You wanna rumble, city boy?”

“Pffft, city boy? Really Tanaka? Really?” you muttered to yourself while dragging your brother with you towards the voices

You placed yourself next to a frightened Hinata, and a slightly confused looking Kenma, before looking at the source of the loud voices, Yamamoto and Tanaka, who were having a glare-off. 

…until the team moms decided to step in.

 

“Saying ‘You wanna rumble’ …we’re here for a match so of course we’re going to” you couldn’t help but snicker at Suga’s bluntness.

“…and stop with the ‘city boy’ stuff, it’s embarrassing” He added in a low voice.

Tanaka had stiffened up completely, and you guessed that it wouldn’t be long before your intimidating wing spiker ended up the same.

Yaku made his presence known seconds later.

“Yamamoto, stop immediately picking fights with people” 

“…It makes you look like an idiot” 

You grinned to yourself when you saw the devastated duo, and it only widened when you heard both Suga and Yaku conversing and apologizing for their kohai’s behavior. 

Looks like team moms get along pretty well after all.

You turned your attention to your wing spiker when you heard his exclamation of surprise, only to find him clutching his own heart looking at something behind you.

Turning around you were shortly met by the angelic face of Kiyoko, you and her hadn’t really talked that much but from your impression she was a sweet and polite girl.

You had also wondered why she hadn’t been with the team earlier, but you guessed that it didn’t really matter.

“Yo~!” You sent her a charming smile along with a small wave, which she returned with a subtle one of her own before walking past the small cluster of people.

Next thing you know Yamamoto is running away from the group, clearly distressed because of something.  
“I’LL REMEMBER THIS DAMMIT!!!”

Shibayama and Inuoka called out to him but he was long gone.

“Ugh, He’s such a pain in my ass” you scoffed playfully; he really needed to learn to be less dramatic in your opinion.

Patting your brother on his shoulder as a hint that you were leaving, you turned around and hooked your arms with the 2 first years and dragged them with you, leaving in the same direction as Yamamoto.

“Let’s go guys, you need to change before the match and I have an emotional wing spiker that I need to have a word or two with” 

 

╰☆╮

 

You were seated next to Nekomata wearing a lazy grin while staring at the team captains that were shaking hands and exchanging a couple of words

“That does not look like a friendly handshake in the slightest” you muttered more to yourself than anyone else.

Both teams were soon after warming up and you snuck your way towards your brother who was sulking on the opposite bench.

“What’s up with the frown homeboi?” you questioned poking his cheek to at least get a reaction out of him.

When he simply sighed and hung his head lower you started actually getting worried about him.

“Oi, who the fuck messed with you now?” you whipped your head from side to side trying to spot the perpetrator, without any luck you faced Noa again.

You may mess with him yourself and come off as a horrible sibling, but in the end you had each other’s back, it’s always been like that and it probably always will. 

When he still didn’t respond you grabbed a stray volleyball from the floor and tossed it to your brother, which he caught out of pure reflex.

You and Noa might not be as good as your team members but you at least knew the basics, which is why the two of you ended up tossing to each other, slowly lifting the mood of a certain bespectacled brother of yours.

“Soooo, feel like talking about it now bro?” you inquired still keeping your eyes on the ball.

You heard him mumble something that you couldn’t quite tell from the yells and noise coming from the boys running around doing their respective warm-ups.

Catching the volleyball you had been playing with; you walked closer and made him repeat himself a bit louder, albeit not by much.

“Well, uhmmm…Tsukki said some pretty mean stuff about you just because, you know, you’re my twin and all…”

“…”

He took a shaky breath and added the sentence that you should probably have seen coming from a mile away.

“I’m sorry for being such a failure of a brother” he pouted, tears threatening to spill.

 

You didn’t really care much when people insulted you, but when it came to your brother you would go from calm to livid in less than a second.

Unfortunately Noa was the same way, only he blamed himself for peoples insults toward you, even though you had assured him that it was your own fault for being a bit too snarky and sassy at times.

You sighed loudly running a hand through his hair calmingly.

“Bro, we’ve had this discussion before, okay? Besides I can totally handle this, just you wait and see” you sent him a mischievous smile, glancing briefly at the victim of your upcoming vengeance.

As if he had sensed your gaze he started walking towards you with a smirk.

“Awwww, how cute, two idiots trying to play volleyball” he looked at the ball in your hands, having slung his arms around Noa’s shoulders.

“Nice one Tsukki”

“Don’t call me that, Yamaguchi!”

You sent both of them a hard glare, unfortunately only Yamaguchi seemed to be affected by it, sighing you thought back to how much your brother had praised this piece of shit kohai a while ago, maybe your brother were right and he would turn out to be a decent human being.

But-

-you could make friends later, right now you had to make up for the shit he had said to Noa.

You switched your glare in exchange for a sickingly sweet close eyed smile.

“Ah, that’s right, we’re not that good at it yet, but at least we try right?” you tilted your head slightly, clearly able to tell that both of the first years were confused by your change in attitude.

“…”  
Tsukishima scoffed loudly, no longer interested in the conversation, and walked off with his sidekick Yamaguchi.

“Hey bro?” 

Noa, who had not been tricked by your smile, warily answered you.  
“Yeah?”

“Don’t stop me and play along okay? Just like back in the days? Alright? Good?” you squeezed the volleyball for a bit, bouncing it on the floor twice, clearly having made up your mind, no matter what you had been told countless times.

Noa hadn’t actually had a chance to respond before you took a running start.

With precise movements as precise as you could manage at least you tossed the volleyball up in the air, letting your feet leap off of the ground you slammed your hand against the ball.

With glee you watched as the ball soared through the air getting closer to its target by the second.

Your feet touched the ground seconds later, and a powerful ‘WHACK!’ rang throughout the gym, effectively halting all movement.

“OH MY SWEET BABY JESUS I AM SOOOO SORRY! CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?!?” you yelled out with fake concern for the tall megane who was clutching the back of his head where the volleyball had hit him.

Running towards the middle blocker, you discreetly winked at Noa.

“I should get an award or something for that flawless acting” you whispered quietly before reaching the place where the boy was kneeling in pain.

Kneeling down a bit so that you were face to face with Tsukishima, you took this chance to ruffle his hair while he had no free hands to slap you away from him.

“I’m so sorry Tsukishima-san; it seems that I lost control over the ball while Noa and I were playing”  
You exclaimed with a smile.

You were aware of all the eyes resting on the two of you but, you knew you just had to play it cool, and you would be able to get away with your petty revenge.

As soon as you heard the sounds of squeaking sneakers return, you knew you were in the clear and continued what you had planned to say.

“..After all…” you started in a sinister tone, all prior fake happiness gone.

“Noa and I are just a couple of idiots trying to play volleyball, right?”

Ruffling his head harder you straightened up, reveling in the grunt of pain that had been his response, turning to Yamaguchi who was now fretting over ‘Tsukki’ you smiled a real smile for once and gently touched his shoulder.

“Hey Yama-chan, I guess you’re actually pretty decent, worrying about your friend and such! That’s a good quality to have!”

A small dust of pink quickly adorned his cheeked and he tried to stutter out a response.

It was really too bad that you were already heading over to Karasuno’s coach to apologize for the ‘unfortunate accident’

Maybe you should start to think before you act, but that would have to be left for some time in the future; after all wiping the smug smirk off of Tsukishima’s face was so worth it. 

 

╰☆╮

 

“What did I tell you (Y/l/n)?” came Nekomata’s amused voice

“Not to cause trouble?” you sounded it out more like a question

“And what did you do?”

“Smack up a bitch who was talking shit, played it off as an accident and got away with causing trouble anyways” you answered with an uninterested face, shrugging your shoulders afterwards as if it was no big deal. 

His gruff laughter filled the bench area at which you had placed yourself after apologizing and giving your brother a hug for good measure.

“You never change do you?”

You knew it was a rhetorical question but answered it regardless.  
“Pffft, you would die of boredom if I did, old man!”

Nekomata left to have a small talk with the Karasuno advisor and coach, obviously knowing the latter, Naoi had also left his seat a while ago to talk to coach Ukai, something about them being the ‘eternal bench warming club’ or something.

“Geez, how do I even know all of these freaks?” you chuckled quietly. Of course you didn’t mind this at all, they may be freaks, but they were YOUR freaks.

 

╰☆╮

 

"We are the body's blood”

“Flow smoothly and circulate oxygen” 

“So the brain functions normally"

“FUCK YEAH!!! GO US!!! WOOOP WOOOP!!! KICK THEIR BUTT!!” you hollered loudly enough for everyone to hear, what? That chant was getting you all fired up! Besides, embarrassment wasn’t really your thing anyway.

“LANGUAGE!” 

“YAKU, SHOW THEM WHO’S BOSS!!!” you blatantly chose to ignore the libero’s warning and instead continued to shout.

Kuroo grinned at your antics and shook his head, you truly were incorrigible, giving the team a small order of ‘let’s do this’ both teams entered the court.

“The practice match between Nekoma high school and Karasuno high school will now begin!!”

“Let’s Play!”  
“Let’s have a good one!”

╰☆╮

 

“Nice serve!”

“Nice one, Kenma!”

The practice match had officially begun, you were honestly a bit surprised to see that 3 first years had claimed starting positions for the match; after all, your team hadn’t even brought Lev. Git gud Lev

All in all it was a bit suspicious in your opinion; Karasuno most definitely had an ace *couch* Asahi *cough* or two up their sleeve.

The glass hearted ace had received the serve with relative ease though it seemed to go a bit short, and listening to Noya’s angry yells you were made aware that he had been skipping out on a month of practice, so it was really no wonder it was a bit off.

“Hmmm…” you hummed quietly, looking from the match down to the clipboard you used for observations and doodles, you may not be a professional volleyball player, but you could be pretty observant when you felt like it.

Out of the corner of your eyes you noticed a flash of orange quickly crossing the court before-

“WHAM!”

“What the fucking fuck?” You exclaimed, eyes widened to almost impossible proportions.  
“What the heck was that?”

You and Nekomata briefly glanced at each other after having worded your thoughts, Hinata, the small middle blocker turned out to be not only fast but damn his jumps were amazing as well.

“I fucking knew it!” you muttered in thought, scribbling a sentence or two down.

This was going to be fun, you noticed that even Kenma seemed a bit surprised by this, and knowing Kenma, he was already planning the next step, calculating what needed to be done, what a smart little setter your team has.

Your train of thought was interrupted by the cheers from Karasuno, and you trailed your eyes across every Karasuno member, the most disturbing thing was the fact that their coach, advisor and annoyingly enough your brother, were wearing matching shit-eating grins. 

“He’s pissing me off…” you scoffed, lightly biting your finger to keep yourself from starting a verbal fight with Noa this early on. 

Naoi lightly patted your back and you gave him a grunt before focusing on the match again.

It was Tanaka’s turn to serve and you smirked slightly when Fukunaga received it, perfectly returning it to Kenma, who set it to you favorite aggressive wing spiker.

“DASHAAAA!!!” Volume control? Nah!

It went over the net, but of course Noya wasn’t going to give your team points that easily.  
“Tch, they’re pretty good” you grinned, so far Karasuno were doing well for a bunch of flightless crows.

Your eyes were on Hinata as soon as he moved, were they going to do that freakish quick again? Didn’t they realize that they should probably not overuse their little trump card?

The ball flew through the air but instead of going to Hinata it went Asahi’s who in turn spiked the ball with immense force, the ball connected soon with the floor, and another point went to Karasuno. 

“Hahaha, incredible…even though they shouldn’t have been able to return the ball, just now we couldn’t do a thing to stop it!” The old man laughed gleefully, and you guessed he was getting fired up as well.

“You’ve got a good libero and spiker, Karasuno! But what’s most unexpected is…”

“…Probably the setter” 

“Oi, Old man, why are you talking to yourself? Are you getting senile already? Need to be put in an old folk’s home or something?” you wiggled your eyebrows with a teasing grin, you were surprised of the talent the young setter carried with him too, but you could never let an opportunity to tease someone get away.

“Respect your elders (Y/l/n)” Naoi exclaimed, slapping the back of your head for good measure.

“Tch, the old man knows it’s only a joke, you bara jerk” you muttered, rubbing your head in pain.

You looked beside you at Shibayama who was sitting this one out, and he looked more than shocked by the power of the spike.

“You okay Shiba?” you asked worriedly, grabbing his shoulder

“So powerful…” he muttered.

You breathed out a sigh, well he wasn’t wrong.

“Don’t worry too much about it Shiba, our team is pretty strong after all” you patted his back with a smile.

 

╰☆╮  


 

“Eh? I guess the dumb titan knows a trick or two after all” you mused to yourself when Tsukishima had scored Karasuno another point with a feint.

You glared at the back of his head, still feeling pretty annoyed by the middle blocker, and though you got some sort of petty revenge you would make sure to treat him just slightly worse than everyone else until you felt like he had redeemed himself. Be it by apologizing or falling victim to pranks you had no idea yet.

11-09 

Once again they weren’t half bad, hopefully your team could come up with a strategy that could stop Karasuno, but your main concern at the moment, were Kageyama’s insanely precise tosses.

Who knew that they would have such a brilliant setter on their team? And a first year at that.

It was Tsukishima’s turn to serve, and in seconds Hinata and Kageyama had performed another quick.

“Ugh…” you grumbled a bit, mainly because Noa was sending you teasing glances; he was really milking this in your opinion.

 

Nekomata cleared his throat and faced you.

“How many points has #10 scored so far?”

You looked down at your clipboard, mainly finding half-assed doodles of your team members, a few notes, but to your horror you may or may not have forgotten to keep track of how many times Hinata had scored.

You pleadingly looked towards Shibayama and prayed that he had paid more attention than you had to the trivial in your opinion stuff like that.

“Of their 11 points he’s scored 4, also thanks to him acting as a decoy the wing spikers have a high success rate”

You mentally thanked Shiba for saving your sorry ass, and promised yourself to treat him to some food or something when you go back to Tokyo.

“Hmph, who would’ve ever thought…” Nekomata mused

Nekomata signaled for a timeout and as soon as the whistle blew, the team gathered together to listen to whatever the old coach wanted to say.

“The way you’ve been playing ain’t gonna work…”

“Eh?”

“That guy…”

“…”

“…Is a real monster”


	13. Need Some Ice For That?

“The way you’ve been playing ain’t gonna work…”

“Eh?”

“That guy…”

“…”

“…Is a real monster”

 

╰☆╮

“A monster, huh?” You muttered slowly in thought, you were currently trying to rewind the scenes from the match in your head, you had a nagging feeling that you had observed something that would be useful information in case the boys hadn’t noticed themselves.

“What? #10?” Yaku questioned the old coach

“Well, his movements are slightly crazy too, but I’m talking about their setter!”

“He has an incredible fast toss sent to the highest point of the spikers swing…that level of control is so precise it’s like threading a needle…”

“…But it’s not a toss that can go to just anyone”

“It only works with a spiker who jumps with absolute trust”

Something in your mind clicked, and you suddenly remembered what had come to mind while watching the boys play earlier.

“There’s nothing we can do about it, geniuses are beyond our control” Nekomata mused with a slight chuckle.

“But…” his lips spread into a mischievous grin.

“A genius can’t win if he only has that connection with one person”

“Looks like your brain is still functioning well, old man! For a second I thought that I might’ve had to finish that thought for you” you nudged him in the side, earning yourself a barking laugh and a head ruffle.

Kenma quietly stepped closer to the coach, obviously according to you about to relay some sort of strategy to the team.

“Shouyou is the pivot point of attack, so…”

“…we just have to stop him”

You heard Yamamoto ask who Shouyou is, and you really questioned if he had even paid any attention to the opposing team.

“If we let him move around freely, we won’t be able to catch him-“

“-so what you’re saying is that we should narrow his range of movement, right Kenma?” he nodded his head at you.  
Tapping a finger on your chin you started trying to figure out just how you would do that, but as you should probably have expected Kenma had it figured out.

“Inuoka”

The first year seemed slightly surprised to have been called out by the setter.

“YES!” do any of the boys know what indoor voices are?

“You’re the most agile person we have, right?”

“THANK YOU! I AM!” 

“Pffft, looks like there’s nothing wrong in the self-confidence department, eh?” you snickered quietly to yourself.

After all it wasn’t often that one would receive that kind of… praise? From Kenma, so you could understand that Inuoka seemed both surprised and excited by it.

“I think that anyone would be surprised the first time they saw that attack like that…I was too” Kenma voiced his thoughts.

“But?” you tried encouraging him to go on, but all you got in return was a look that told you to stop interrupting him.

He returned his gaze to your coach and the rest of the team.  
“Even if a game doesn’t seem clearable at first, playing it over and over again, you can conquer it”

Sensing that that was it from the setter Nekoma spoke up.

“Their #9 and #10 are just like the Oni* and the Kanabo*…” he started out

“You seriously couldn’t have come with a more normal analogy?” you snorted, it’s not that it wasn’t true, but it still sounded kind of dumb in your opinion.

He pointedly ignored you.

“First of all, we’ll have to take away the Oni’s kanabo”

 

╰☆╮

The match had started up again after Kenma had relayed his strategy to all of you. All in all Inuoka would be chasing Hinata, while the others would focus on blocking as much of the court as possible so that Hinata would be left with a very small area for his spikes to get through.

You couldn’t claim that Kenma was dumb, that was for sure. You sometimes had your doubts about some of the others though.

While the game was going on, you were having the time of your life soundlessly conversing with Noa when the coaches were distracted by the match.

You mouthed something to your brother and he easily read your lips.

‘We’re so going to win’

He viciously shook his head before mouthing back

‘As if’ 

Feeling like you hadn’t teased your brother well enough you stepped up your game bit.

‘You’re just jealous of my team bro’ you made sure to exaggerate your mouth movements so that he could actually tell the words apart from each other.

‘Nu-uh’

‘Yeah you are,’ 

‘That’s absurd’ Noa had obviously scoffed aloud since the Karasuno advisor along with the coach had turned to stare at him before dragging their gaze towards to match once more.

This continued on for a while, and you were actually feeling pretty satisfied with the turn of events so far.

 

╰☆╮

 

“I’M NOT FUCKING APOLOGIZING! THAT FUCKING MORON OVER THERE FUCKING STARTED IT!” you yelled at Kuroo, you were livid the put it bluntly and it would sooner rain fucking volleyballs than you apologizing for anything.

Your captain sighed, he was tired after a long match, and now he had to deal with this shit.

“Just apologize god damn it!” Kuroo was holding you back at the moment so that you wouldn’t give your brother another black eye.

“HE FUCKING KNOW WHAT HE DID AND HE BETTER FUCKING REALISE THAT HE DESERVED TO HAVE A MEET AND GREET WITH MY FIST!!!” 

“(Y/n) calm the fuck down” you were still trying to get out of kuroo’s grip so that you could continue to pummel Noa into the ground.  
Unfortunately for you, your friend and captain had more sense than that and kept you from doing something that you would surely regret later on.

“I. WILL. NOT. CALM. DOWN” with every pause you made between your words you flailed wildly, even going as far as elbowing Kuroo a couple of times, hopefully he would forgive you for that later on.

After a specific well aimed hit to his guts, he heaved a big sighed and adjusted his grip on you.

“That’s enough!” his voice was stern and you knew he was right, you were behaving like a child, yet what had happened earlier still rang clearly through your mind, and though you regretted your behavior towards Kuroo, you felt that it was mostly worth it when you looked at the bruising of your brothers eye.  
You stopped struggling, and looked at the surrounding faces; Kiyoko was helping out your brother by handing him a bag of ice to stop the swelling, and mostly everybody else looked positively stunned at what you had done.  
You stared at your feet and furrowed your brows, screw them, and screw this, you could feel the tears start their descend down your cheeks, and that only sparked your anger once more. 

Stupid Noa, stupid Kuroo, stupid volleyball, everything and everyone could go screw themselves.

When he felt you relax slightly aka no longer elbowing him here and there Kuroo turned you around in his grip, and instantly held you tightly in a hug.

“I need some fresh air” you croaked out, hiding the angry tears that were making their way down your face in his shirt, he may be all sweaty from the matches, but at the moment all you cared about was getting out of here and away from the frightened and confused stares of both teams.

“Okay, I’ll take you there” he whispered soothingly and lifted you off the floor, only to waddle out of the gym with you clinging to him like a child hugging a person way taller than them.you guys know what I’m talking about, right?

 

After the two of you had left the gym the silence was overwhelming until a certain brother of yours groaned loudly and gave up standing, and simply sat himself on the floor while holding the ice to his eye.

“I really messed up this time” the rest of the group had no idea if Noa were addressing them or if he was merely stating a fact to himself, his humorless chuckles though, were an almost certain sign of the latter being the correct answer.

But they were all thoroughly confused as to what had just happened.

One second they were congratulating each other on the result of the match and bonding, the next you were holding Noa down and beating the shit out of his face. Successfully breaking his glasses in the process

╰☆╮

You were letting the cold water from the outdoors faucet cool your head, and when you had had enough you turned it off and crouched down with your hands covering the back of your neck as if you were trying to curl up even further than what was possible. 

“You feel any better?”

You gave a muffled grunt in reply and made a point of slowly shuffling your feet so that your back would be facing Kuroo.

“Want to talk about what happened in there?”

“Maybe”

“So that’s a yes?”

“I guess so”

He slowly placed himself on the ground behind you and you slowly uncurled and leaned back.

“Kuroo?”

He hummed in reply.

“We’re…uhmmm…we’re friends, right?” you questioned him hesitantly.

“Of course we are Kitten, or else I wouldn’t be sitting with you right now”

You breathed a small sigh of relief and started your retelling of what had occurred between Noa and you.

 

╰☆╮

Nekoma had won and you were ecstatic, you were running around hugging everyone in your path, even with the unique first years of Karasuno your team had managed to win in the end, not like you had any doubts in the first place though. 

“YOU GUYS WERE AMAZING!!!” you yelled for everyone to hear, Nekomata and Naoi chuckling at your energetic display, while your team members gladly welcomed the praise and hugs. Even Kenma allowed a small hug

You made your way through the Karasuno members, congratulating them on how hard they had fought and of course wishing them good luck with their future matches.

It was funny how at home you felt amongst these guys.  
You almost pissed yourself with laughter when you saw Kageyama staring at Kenma, the latter obviously feeling uncomfortable under the scrutinizing glare of the young setter, and the image of Noya yelling at Yaku while Sugawara apologized for his kohai’s behavior would probably be ingrained in your mind for a long ass while.

Nekoma couldn’t have better rivals than these guys in your opinion; their dynamic is just too perfect.

You felt eyes on your back but when you looked they were gone, not worrying too much about it you turned around to meet up with your coach who was teasing, who you by now knew as coach Ukai, relentlessly about their loss in the 3 matches the teams had played.

“What? You couldn’t even win 1 set during those 3 matches? And that novice sensei is trying so hard, too”

“You just wait, next time we’ll definitely win every set” grumbled Ukai

“Is that so? You’re not just all talk are you?”

At this point Naoi cut in since Nekomata was getting a bit too fired up.  
“Sensei, don’t go picking fights like that”

“IT’S THIS GUY’S FAULT FOR LOOKING EXACTLY LIKE HIS GRAMPS!!!”

“THAT’S JUST CHILDISH!” Naoi retorted.

“Oi, old man, I’m going to fill up the water bottles real quick” you interrupted

Nekomata merely nodded at you and went back to his teasing, aggravating Ukai more and more by the second.

╰☆╮

Moments later Noa had joined you in the tedious job of refilling the water bottles outside, and at the moment it was just the two of you filling bottle after bottle, thoroughly enjoying the refreshing breeze.

This would’ve been a pleasant little task but Noa had been oddly silent ever since the match ended, leaving you to figure out what the hell was wrong with him.

“Are you going to tell me what’s up?”

“…”

“Hello~” you put down the bottle that you had just filled and waved a hand in front of his face.

“…Earth to Noa, anyone there or are you spacing out with some cool aliens?” you inwardly praised yourself on how funny you are.

Noa lifted his gaze and you were met with his cold glare, the sun shining upon his glasses in such a way that he actually looked intimidating for a moment.

“What the hell is up with you Noa?” you scrunched your eyebrows together and grabbed his shoulder, holding it firmly.

He mumbled something that you didn’t quite catch.

“Oi, speak up, you’re starting to freak me out” and that was the honest truth, Noa had never behaved like this, at least not what you know of, and it was a terrifyingly opposite to his normal behavior.

He grabbed a tight hold of your hand, and easily twisted your hand, making you release his shoulder to hold your hand in pain.

He collected the now full water bottles, and turned his back to you starting the small trek towards the gym, obviously not caring about how he had left you confused and slightly hurt by his cold attitude.

You were feeling pissed off and you were about to yell at him for being weird and fucking annoying, but that was only until he opened his mouth and said words obviously intended to hit you where they would hurt the most.

“You know they don’t really care about you, right?”

 

“…” 

“Never have, never will”

“…”

“You’re just a convenience to them at the moment”

“…”

“When high school is over and done with they’ll all leave you”

“…”

 

“Just like they always do”

“…”

 

“The only people you can trust in this world are your own flesh and blood, your family” he sent you one last look and continued on his way. 

You chuckled outwardly at how well Noa knew your insecurities; you also applauded him on how good he was at tearing you apart with mere words…

But with that said and done…

You weren’t going to let him leave without at least adding a bruise to his ugly mug…

You would show him flesh and blood in a couple of seconds that you swore to yourself.

 

╰☆╮

The rest of the team members were cleaning up the gym after the match, and your fight with your brother Noa had seated himself next to coach Ukai and Takeda-Sensei, nursing his black eye while mulling through what had happened.

Snapping out of his thoughts, he heaved a sigh and directed his gaze to the ceiling.

“How troublesome”

╰☆╮

 

Outside, you had decided to tell Kuroo just enough so that he would be able to make sense of your actions, but obviously leaving out what Noa had said to you, you were not ready to openly admit what had sent you into a state of pure fury.

Nor were you absolutely certain that there hadn’t been some truth in Noa’s words after all.

 

You felt a gentle hand run through your hair, effectively easing your worries, along with making you realized just how much energy you had used while beating up Noa.

“Well, whatever he said it sounds like your brother really asked for it”

“Yeah” you yawned immediately after replying.

“Pffft, did you wear yourself out with a small catfight?” Kuroo teased, ruffling your hair so that you wouldn’t doze off on him.

“Just shut up and carry me or something” you snickered, the talk with Kuroo had really lifted your mood, at times like these you felt really lucky to know people like him…

Friends like him?

Yeah, he was definitely a friend…

And a good one at that,

Noa had no idea what he was talking about.

╰☆╮

Later that night you were sitting on your futon surrounded by the rest of the team, Kuroo had explained to them that you had had a good reason for what you did, and they had all seemed pretty chill about it, not asking any further questions about it since Kuroo seemed certain that things would work themselves out, and so they trusted their captain and his decision.

Yamamoto had even offered to help you beat Noa to a pulp the next time he messed with you, and though you knew it was all bark and no bite with him, the gesture was nice nonetheless.

You had apologized deeply to Nekomata about your behavior to which he merely chuckled and commented that kids will be kids, and honestly you were relieved that he wasn’t mad at you.

Naoi had cleared things out with Ukai while you had been outside, for which you were grateful, and after sending a couple of texts to some of the Karasuno boys, you knew that it was all good between them and you.

You were slightly disappointed that you had missed saying goodbye to them since you had decided to head back a bit earlier in fear that you would gift Noa with another black eye if you faced him right then and there.

It wasn’t like this would be your last chance to meet up with the boys, so in the end it wasn’t really anything to cry about, it still bugged you nonetheless.

The next hour or so was spent leaning slightly on Kenma and simply focusing on the game he was playing, trying to unsuccessfully distract yourself from thoughts of your brother, he could literally go fuck himself for all you cared at the moment.

You rubbed your eyes, clearly willing yourself to stay awake for just a bit longer, but maybe you could just rest them for a while? Yeah! That sounded nice!

You wordlessly laid down on kenma’s futon and closed your eyes for just a moment.

╰☆╮

The next time you opened them the room was engulfed in darkness, and you were lying on your own futon, you looked around tiredly, eyes squinting when your phone lit up the space next to you.

[13 missed calls]  
[From: Mom] 

You scoffed when you saw who had called, and deleted all of the notifications before rolling onto your side and falling into a deep slumber once more.

The last thought on your mind being that family didn’t necessarily mean that the people involved were of your own flesh and blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________  
> *Oni: Oni (鬼) are a kind of yōkai from Japanese folklore, variously translated as demons, devils, ogres or trolls. They are popular characters in Japanese art, literature and theatre.
> 
> *Kanabo: The kanabō (金棒) was a spiked/knobbed club or truncheon used in feudal Japan as a weapon by samurai and their retainers.  
> _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
> 
> HOLY SHIT IT'S BEEN A MONTH SINCE I LAST UPDATED AND FOR THAT I AM SOOOOOO SORRY~!!!
> 
> it's just been really chaotic lately, and i kind of had to put writing chapters further down on my list of shit to do!
> 
> but it's done now! IT'S FINALLY DONE!!! *cries happy tears*
> 
> I hope you enjoyed reading the chapter~! (๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵)و
> 
> (also I really appreciate comments, they help me improve and let me know if i'm doing alright, that aside they never cease to make me happy and eternally grateful for every single one of you enjoying the story)
> 
>  
> 
> anyways~!
> 
>  
> 
> i hope you have a good day, week, month and rest of your lives~!
> 
> until next time~!
> 
> bye bye~!

**Author's Note:**

> "We're like the blood in our veins. We must flow without stopping. Keep the oxygen moving and your mind working."


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